Why Make hOMEMADE Ketchup?

Now the whole point of home made kethup in my eyes is to for fill 2 main criteria…

Firstly, it is to make and enjoy homemade ketchup made with fresh tomtoes, which, in my opinion tastes so much better than shop brought. If you go to fresh food markets alot, or like me, your local delicatesent reduces food going past its best, tomateos are a great one to grab. There are always bagfuls of tomatoes at the end of the season waiting to be turned into a sauce, or a salsa or my simple tomatoes on toast is a good one! Again, if you grow as much as you can at home or have a little patch of land to grow on, or even a window seal…tomatoes are such a great thing to grow…and the yield you can get from them is usually quite good. There are so many varities aswell.

Secondly, homemade ketchup is such a nice thing to serve to family and freinds, bevasue at the end of the day…why else are you making and doing all of this gard work other than to feed the people you love. You also know exactly what you have and havent put into your recipe. For example, if you were making it specifically for kids, like I do, you can adjust salt, sugar and spice levels as you so wish.

Fresh Tomatoes…

The classic tomatoes to make your ketcup with are the Roma and San Marzano varities, primarily for their slightly meatier texture and lower moisture content.

I saw a great idea in the Jamie Oliver at home book, which was to make different colour tomatoe sauces based on the color and variety of tomato you use. Using an entire batch of over ripe reds, yellow or green tomatoes for example would make their different, relevent coloured sauces. Great idea!

Can you use tinned tomatoes…?

You can use tinned tomatoes to make a ketchup. I tried a tinned version replace tinned for fresh in this recipe and it turned out ok. We make alot of basic tomato pasta, pizza sauces, etc at home and it just tasted like one of those where as the fresh just had a much deeper, fresher, zingier flavour.

How and where to keep your homemade ketchup?

It should last for up to 3 weeks if you keep your ketchup in a sealed, glass container, in the fridge. Alternatievly you can freeze in an icecube tray however it is best to freeze your sauce in the tray and then decant the frozen cubes into a bag for ease of use. This method works really well however the consistecy of the sauce can change slightly once frozen.

This recipe…

You could quite easily make a very good and quick ketchup with this recipe by throwing everything into a pan for an hour, pushing through a fine sieve and then cooking down even further to reach your desired consistency. That in its self would be a delicious ketchup.

If you have time on the other hand, and as I have stated in this recipe, you can take your onion and sweat it down for a while. That is where the flavour is going to start and this will make all the difference. This is almost an optional stage however based on the time you have.

Note – You will need some cheese cloth and kitchen twine to make a small bag for the spices..

1tsp olive oil
1 large onion roughly chopped

4 cloves
1 cinamon stick
2 bay leaf
1/2 tsp all spice
celery seeds

2kg tomaotes

3tsp salt
1 cup good apple cider vinegar
8-10 tbsp light brown sugar

add loive oil to a pan and add your roughtly chopped onion. Sweat down for 10-15 mins on low with no colour…

make your spice packet by placing all of your herbs and spices into your cheese cloth and securing with the kitchen twine…

Add tomatoes, salt, vinegar, sugar and your spice packet to your onions and cook for around 30 mins on medium until mushy…

Now remove your spice packet and discard…

You can at this point blend your ketchup to strain in but I just pushed it through a fine sieve without blending…less washing up…

Now put back on the heat and cook down to your desired consistency. Some where around 45 mins worked for me…

Enjoy…