Sun-dried tomatoes in the ceramic bowl

Dried tomatoes from Sicily in a ceramic bowl

Dried tomatoes in a ceramic bowl are sun-dried Sicilian tomatoes served in a hand-painted ceramic bowl. Intense, sweet and salty, and concentrated – a piece of Sicily for your cooking, plus a bowl that stays and lives on after the last piece is gone.

Dried tomatoes from Sicily are sun-dried, fully ripe tomatoes, preserved here only with salt and arranged in a hand-painted ceramic bowl. In Italian, they are called pomodori secchi. Dark red, leathery, and dry, they have an intense, concentrated tomato flavor that is both sweet and salty – and the bowl remains once the tomatoes have been eaten.

Sun-dried, intense, concentrated tomato

Dried tomatoes are summer in concentrated form – what the sun takes from the water, it returns in flavor. They are a staple that lasts a long time and always provides something whenever you need a quick boost of flavor.

Dark red and leathery, with the deep, almost sweet aroma of fully ripe tomatoes, plus the seasoning of the salt. You can finely chop them while dry and sprinkle them over salad or pasta; when soaked in warm water or olive oil, they become soft and juicy, ready for pasta, antipasti, or sugo. A few pieces immediately give bread dough, cream cheese, or a vegetable stir-fry a Mediterranean depth.

The ceramic bowl to keep

The tomatoes come in a hand-painted ceramic bowl, traditional in Sicily and a small gift in itself.

Sicily is famous for its ceramics – the colorful, hand-painted bowls from towns like Caltagirone belong to the island just as much as lemons and prickly pears. The patterns—lemons, flowers, and ornaments in yellow, blue, and green—tell the story of the island; each bowl is unique. Once the supply of tomatoes is used up, the bowl remains and becomes an olive dish, a salt cellar, or a small eye-catcher on the table. This way, you get something out of it twice: once in the kitchen and once on the shelf.

Dried by the Sicilian sun

The tomatoes are dried in Sicily, where the sun is strong enough to preserve them entirely without an oven.

On racks in the sun, the fully ripe tomatoes lose their water over several days and retain only the concentrated flavor – one of the oldest ways to preserve summer for winter, as with many of Sicily's canned specialties. Sicily, with its intense sun and aromatic tomatoes, is perfect for this; only salt is added, nothing else.

Dried, sorted, and packed into the bowl, the tomatoes come from the Antica Bottega Siciliana, which Salvatore Novara runs in Trapani. Under this name, he brings together the products of small producers on the island – dried tomatoes alongside pesto, honey, and jam.

Twenty to thirty minutes in warm water

Dry, dried tomatoes are easy to store for a long time; kept cool, dry, and dark, they last for months. To use them, soak them in warm water for 20 to 30 minutes until soft, or place them in good olive oil, where they will turn into marinated tomatoes with a little garlic and herbs. A few finely chopped pieces sprinkled directly over a salad do not need soaking at all, and the soaking water with its tomato flavor works well in a sauce or soup.