Tomato Sauce: The Importance of Enzymes and Temperatures

The most familiar vegetable puree in the West, and perhaps in the world, is tomato sauce and paste. The solids in tomatoes are about two-thirds flavorful sugars and organic acids, and 20% cell-wall carbohydrates that have some thickening power (10% cellulose, and 5% each pectin and hemicelluloses). In the United States, commercial tomato purees may include all the water in the original tomatoes, or just a third. Tomato paste is tomato puree cooked down so that it contains less than a fifth of the water of the raw vegetable. Tomato paste is thus a concentrated source of flavor, color, and thickening power. (It’s also an effective emulsion stabilizer.)