Small scale chili-tomato sauce processing
Chili-tomato paste is a popular product in parts of southeast Asia. Several local and AVRDC varieties of chili and tomato have been successfully used for processing. Fruit should be a deep red color when fully ripe to produce the desired red paste color. The production of chili-tomato paste has been estimated to give a net return of over US$150/t of product.
- Select deep red tomato and chili and wash to remove debris and other surface contaminants.
- Blanch fruit in boiling tank or hot steam chamber for 20-30 minutes to ease grinding (chili) or peeling (tomato).
- For chili, add 0.4 liter water for every kg fruit to ease grinding and sort out the seeds and peel.
- Blend the grinded chili and tomato flesh (without peel and seeds) separately before mixing them together.
- Prepare the mixture – chili paste (20-30%), tomato paste (15-25%), garlic paste (10-15%), sugar (10-17%), salt (2-4%), cassava starch (0.5-1%), monosodium glutamate (0.1-0.3%), emulsifier mixture (0.02-0.06%), ascorbic acid (0.05-0.08%), citric acid (0.1-0.2%), acetic acid (0.3-0.4%), sodium benzoate (0.04-0.06%), sorbic acid (0.08-0.1%), and water (to make 100%).
- Boil the mixture for 3-5 minutes and cool to 65ºC. Acetic acid, sodium benzoate and sorbic acid are added during cooling when the temperature reaches 75-80ºC while ascorbic acid, when temperature reaches 65ºC.
- Pasteurize/sterilize bottles are then fill with the product with temperature not lower than 65ºC.
- Close quickly the filled bottles and keep at ambient for at least one week (during summer) or two weeks (during winter) for appearance of any possible defects. All defective products are sorted away before labeling.
- Store finished products in cool dark area.