I love Watties tomato sauce so much, I would love to replicate it at home but never get that right consistency. Anyone out there reckon they have a recipe that is just like the good ol' Watties tomato sauce?

When (if) my garden tomatoes ever ripen I intend to try several different recipes I've scoured everywhere for, in the hope that I, too, can create something like Wattie's. I will post if I come close but it will be a month away at least... They have a very non-vinegary tasting sauce (made in Oz last time I looked, too) with high sugar content and food acids used instead of vinegar so we'll be pushing our luck but still...


Actually, Wattie's reference to the food acid acetic acid probably does mean liquid vinegar as I can't find any source of acetic acid powder(?). Does anyone sell that?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/17/2012 06:36AM by J1.

Oh good, I will wait!! When you have mastered it, please PM me, that will probably be the best way.

I find that Watties tomato sauce is unnaturally red...

I find that Watties tomato sauce is unnaturally red...

acetic acid - is bought through chemist...it is strong and very chemically.

you can use white vinegar but you would need more rather than less.

I have a huge amount of acetic acid (can't remember my strength/%) for dyeing yarns. I have no idea how much you would use for tomato sauce :-)

the unnaturally red:

might come from the acetic acid (liquid) they they use...as what it does in dyeing is grab the colour and make it stick to the yarn. So if this was the same for tomato...it would be about right.

as I said you can use white vinegar, less powerful but just as good...

Maryloo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I find that Watties tomato sauce is unnaturally
> red...


Not to mention unnaturally sweet.

I think we are all drowning in tomatoes at the moment. I know I am!

[lingerieheaven.co.nz]
Because life is special, not just February 14.

[blog.lingerieheaven.co.nz]

Great way to use up tomatoes (and darn handy)

Eat well, live well, dress well.

Glacial acetic acid conversions are -

45 mls glacial acetic acid to a litre of water;

for smaller quantity 10 mls of glacial acetic acid to 1 metric measuring cup water.

Regards,
Dawn.

Tess, this is all the foodlovers info I gathered some time ago - just to get you started.


[www.foodlovers.co.nz]
Sheryl’s tomato sauce
8.5kg tomatoes, chopped
4.5kg green apples, peeled and chopped
4 onions, sliced
1 cup cold water
3kg sugar
75g salt
1 litre malt vinegar
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
12.5g black peppercorns
12.5g whole alspice
12.5g whole cloves

Place tomatoes, apples, onions and water in a large pan and bring to the boil. Cook for one hour. Add sugar, salt, vinegar, cayenne and spices tied in muslin. Boil for a further 3 hours. Remove spices, bottle and seal when cold.

Doreen’s tomato sauce
5.5kg tomatoes, washed and chopped
2 onions, finely chopped
85g allspice, tied in muslin
1.5kg brown sugar
85g common salt
1 litre malt vinegar

Place all ingredients in a large pan and bring to the boil. Cook for 3 hours. Pass through a sieve and bottle. Seal once cold.

[www.foodlovers.co.nz]
Tomato Sauce
This is perfect for serving with your Fish & chips

6 kg tomatoes, halved
2 kg sugar
4 onions, peeled and chopped
125g cooking salt
cayenne pepper
30g black peppercorns
30g cloves
60g whole allspice

Place tomatoes, sugar, onions, salt and cayenne pepper to taste in a saucepan. Place peppercorns, cloves and allspice in a muslin bag and add to tomatoes. Bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve sugar. Cook for 2-2 1/2 hours and then pour into sterilised bottles and seal.

1. Smaller tomatoes can be juicier than large fleshy tomatoes, so all you need to do is boil the pureed sauce longer (without lid on pot) to achieve the desired thickness of sauce. Stir often to avoid it settling on bottom of pot and possibly burning. Regards, Dawn.
2. Who peels tomatoes? That what food processors and moulies were invented for! Stephanie D

Posted by: Dawn Date: February 28, 2008 06:37PM Jo,the recipe sounds fine, but, after the mouli stage I put mine back on the boil, stirring often, until "the" desired thickness. Despite what the recipe says - no harm is done by boiling until you feel the desired thickness has been reached. I can assure you that if you are using fleshy tomatos for the sauce, the bottling time will be quicker. If you are using tomatoes that have lots of juice the boiling time after the mouli stage will be longer. Therefore - it depends upon the tomatoes you've used in the first place. Quite often sauce tomatoes are the ones with lots of juice. So to answer your question, yes reduce it more, but bear in mind that it will thicken on cooling which is what Penny has suggested.


Re: Connie's tomato sauce recipe with acetic acid? Posted by: Beverley Date: February 19, 2008 08:53AM Su, I have had this recipe for years and it makes great sauce. If I were you, I wouldn't change the recipe in any way, the acetic acid is quite easy to get from a Chemist.
Cheers, Beverley

Re: Connie's tomato sauce recipe with acetic acid? Posted by: lynne Date: February 19, 2008 10:05AM Just to set this right.........acetic acid is available from the s/market in powdered form. Glacial acetic is a liquid from the Chemist. Cheers.

[www.foodlovers.co.nz]
Re: Tomato Sauce query
Posted by: Diane J Date: February 7, 2008 01:59PM
This IS like Watties and is pure tomato! The recipe is about 50 years old, so not metric.

12 lbs tomatoes
2 lbs sugar
3 oz whole 'All Spice' (in muslin)
3 oz plain salt
1 1/2 oz (38ml) Acetic Acid (from Chemist)

Boil all except acid for 3 hours then put through blender/mouli. Add acid & bottle.

*Hopefully, you can still get the acid - be careful it is exceptionally strong. I used to blend first then mouli so you got rid of the tough tomato skins and seeds. I made it for years but then got lazy!

[www.foodlovers.co.nz]
This tomato sauce is rich and delicious. Purchase the oil of cloves, glacial acetic acid, salicylic acid and oil of pimento from a pharmacy.

5.5 kg tomatoes
1.5 kg sugar
1.5 kg onions
1.5 kg apples
3 tablespoons plain salt
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground pepper
0.92 ml oil of cloves
22 ml glacial acetic acid
.3 ml acetyl salicylic acid
0.92 ml oil of pimento

Roughly chop tomatoes, onions and apples and place in a large pan along with the sugar. Salt, ginger and pepper. Bring to the boil and cook for 1 1/4 hours. Moulis or sieve the sauce and then return to the pan. Add the oil of cloves, acetic acid, salicylic acid and oil of pimento. Boil for a further 10 minutes and then allow to cool and pour into sterilised bottles.

(J1's note - I believe the above recipe is the one people refer to as "Connie's recipe"




Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/2012 01:13AM by J1.

Acetic acid (liquid) is non-fermented white vinegar. Look out for cheap white vinegar in the supermarket and check the label - it's probably non-fermented. Not my choice of vinegar but is probably the most similar to what large sauce producers use.

The trick to getting consistency right is the length of time it simmers. The longer it simmers, the thicker it ends up. I've sometimes bubbled mine for two or three hours - and I leave out the water in some recipes because I don't see the point of adding it only to wait ages for it to boil off.

However, it wouldn't surprise me if Watties uses a thickening agent rather than slow simmering (the label will give you some idea), so it may be hard to get the exact same consistency without using whatever thickening agent they use. I've tried arrowroot and cornflour to thicken my chilli sauce and I wouldn't particularly recommend it. So I use time instead.

If you don't like sweet sauce, don't add sugar. I never do - I don't like the sweet ones though and always check the labels on supermarket tomato sauce and choose the one with least sugar. Happily, it's usually the budget ones



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/2012 06:03AM by FarmAway.

I’ve been making tomato sauce, with the intention of finding one similar to the taste of Wattie’s.

Wattie’s first ingredient is Concentrated Tomatoes (contains 187g tomatoes per 100g), then sugar, salt, food acids (acetic acid, citrus acid), spices, natural flavours.

One of the problems is Wattie’s have the tomato quantity separate from the sugar, etc, which I can’t do. ***

My first recipe (from lifestyleblock.co.nz) used 1kg tomatoes, 1 cup (200g) sugar, some salt & spice, and 1 cup (250ml/225g) vinegar, which resulted in 500ml/540g of sauce at the end. We could guess that maybe 150g of the end sauce is due to vinegar/sugar weight, so the remaining 390g of sauce could be said to be tomato concentrate, which would therefore be 390g tomatoes per 540g., or approx 78g tomatoes per 100g. That’s a very poor concentration of tomatoes compared to the Wattie’s one of 187g tomatoes per 100g.

My second recipe (Connie’s, which I halved) used 2.75kg tomatoes, 750g sugar, 750g onions, 750g apples, some salt, ginger, pepper, spices, and small amounts of acid (in place of vinegar), which resulted in a bit over three litres of sauce or 3324g. We can only guess that maybe 1087g of the end sauce is due to the sugar/onions/apples weight, so the remaining 2237g of sauce could be said to be tomato concentrate, which would therefore be 2237g tomatoes per 3324g, or approx 67g of tomatoes per 100g. That’s an even worse concentration of tomatoes compared to Wattie’s.

So our tomato sauces don’t taste like Wattie’s and their colouring is nowhere near as bright red. However, both sauces I tried are perfectly fine sauces. I’d prefer to make the lifestyleblock recipe again over Connie’s as I find Connie’s too sweet and the apples and onions detract further from the tomato flavour.

I have other recipes which I was considering trying but they’re actually all very similar to each other – either being very simple with tomatoes, sugar, vinegar, spices, or of the other type that includes things like apples and onions, so I think their end results would be similar to my two recipes above.

*** Finally, the answer would be to make some tomato concentrate. Get a whole lot of tomatoes, cook them and figure out how many tomatoes you need in order to equal Wattie’s concentrated ratio of 187g tomatoes per 100g. Then you use that concentrate to make a tomato sauce. That’s what I plan to do next time we need some tomato sauce. Has anyone ever done this? I guess you could even buy tomato concentrate and turn it into sauce…?

As per my final paragraph in my post above, I made tomato concentrate this year, and used it to make Connie's tomato sauce recipe again. I took 5236g of tomatoes and cooked them until they'd reduced to 2774g. This equalled the tomato concentrate ratio Wattie's uses, of 187g tomatoes per 100g. Then I used that 2774g of tomato concentrate to make Connie's recipe (I halve the recipe). I kept everything else the same. It seems to have made a very nice, thick, lovely sauce. The colour's still not like Wattie's. I don't have any Wattie's sauce to compare the flavour too but I doubt that it's similar enough for Wattie's aficionados.

After all that, I still find Connie's too sweet so will be reducing the sugar or looking for a different recipe next year.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/10/2013 01:58PM by J1.