Sun-dried Tomatoes...a bag of dry, Greek sun-dried tomatoes

Non-regional discussions Home Cooking
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When my friends travel abroad, they tend to bring me culinary treats home…I’m lucky to have thoughtful friends. The last gift perplexes me some because I’m not certain how to handle them. I received a bag of dry sun-dried tomatoes from Greece. I’ve never used dried sun-dried tomatoes before. I have so many questions…
-How do I properly reconstitute them?
-Can I jar them in oil?
-How long will they keep after reconstituting them?
-What’s the best method of making them last longer?
Initial research offers a few options, but wanted to see if anyone had prior experience that I could learn from.
Thanks!

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I’ve actually used them in Chinese food preps, without reconstituting.

They’re great diced or minced, or a somewhere more fine than a dice and less fine than a pure mince, maybe a “dince”?

Anyway, dinced (or very finely diced), they’re great in Chinese tomato tofu and, surprisingly, I find dinced dried sun-dried tomatoes a great addition to fried rice. A handful tossed into the scrambled egg mix when making your fried rice is a great way to liven up and add a nice dimensional flavor texture to the rice.

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Funny, in the early 80s they were a staple of my pantry, but I have no memory of what I did with them.

I started trying them wherever I might usually toss canned tomatoes (which began to seem lifeless by comparison) or grape or cherry tomatoes, the only semi-flavorful fresh tomatoes in winter. I never bothered pre-soaking them or anything like that. Sometimes I cut the halves into pieces, sometimes not, but in they went, into just about every sauce, stew, braised dish or soup that I made over the next couple of months.

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I re hydrate like I would dried chiles then pack in a glass jar with some rosemary, lemon peel, bay leaf warmed with a olive oil I cut with a neutral oil. Then i keep refrigerated. They are great in all sorts of things for a quick dinner or salad with beans/sausage/cheese/greens/whatever

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5

I snack on them. I like the chewiness.

For cooking, I pour boiling water on the dried tomatoes (like reconstituting dried mushrooms), then slice or dice them, and gently heat in some olive oil with olives or capers, then toss with hot pasta and lemon zest.

I like the fried rice idea.

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