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When we’re in the height of tomato season, there’s always a bit of “tyranny of produce” happening in our house, as flats of long awaited tomatoes start to stack up on counters, chairs, chest freezer lids… you get the idea.

I’ve learned over the years to rotate which preserved foods to focus on year to year, as we often don’t finish up all of last year’s bounty by the following year. So one year I might make BBQ sauce and a lot of salsa. Another I might focus on tomato soup and simple canned tomatoes. Every year I make a few batches of roasted tomato sauce for the freezer.

And lately, every year I make a very concentrated batch of tomato paste, which I call Conserva – though technically, Conserva in Italian just means preserved. And according to Hank Shaw, who’s recipe I am documenting here, I’m really taking Conserva to the next level, which is ‘Strattu (short for estratto, which translates as extract).