AlwaysHappy asked me to post the recipe I used for the ketchup I made on Sunday, so here goes. Obviously I made a huge batch because I had so many tomatoes - this made 9 jars! Feel free to scale it down.
4 kilos tomatoes
6 onions, finely chopped
4 sticks of celery, finely chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
400g brown sugar
500ml vinegar (I used a mixture of red wine, white wine and a little balsamic because I had it!)
2 tsp cayenne
2 tsp paprika
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp tomato purée
Cook the vegetables in a large pan until soft and pulpy. Boil rapidly until the mixture thickens. Mine took about 25 mins, but my tomatoes had been frozen so were 'wet'. In fact, I had ladled off some of the extra juice, fearing it might take me days to get it thick. Stir frequently to prevent sticking. Take off the heat and cool slightly. Liquidise in batches, then pass through a sieve to make a smooth sauce.
Return to a clean pan and add the remaining ingredients. Stir until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture has thickened to the right consistency.
Bottle the ketchup into sterile containers.
The bottles then need to be processed further to allow them to be stored safely.
In a deep roasting tin, place a folded tea towel to cover the base. Place the bottles in the tin with lids loosely on. Ensure that the bottles are not touching one another or the sides of the tin. (I did mine in two batches). Pour in hot water at least 2/3 of the height of the bottles. Put in the oven at 170c for 40 minutes. Remove, shut the lids firmly and cool on a rack before labelling (include the date made). Store in a cool dark cupboard for no more than a year. Once opened, the jars should be kept in the fridge and used quickly.
The labels don't stick well on the dumpy jars :(
The little jar will be used up by us.
I also made raspberry and cassis jam. Just make the jam as you would normally, but add 30ml of cassis at the end. Oh my!! What a treat!
Just another three/ four different jams and a chutney to make and I will have used everything up. Phew!!
I am looking forward to using the recipe later on in the season when we have some tomatoes growing, sounds amazing. I am one of your new followers.
ReplyDeleteWelcome and thanks for introducing yourself! One day, I might get the hang of the follower gadget.
DeleteIt's a very tasty ketchup with a lot of oomph. Some of that may be from the addition of the balsamic, so you may want to leave that out....
New followers who use a picture pop up at the front. To find the others, click on your followers on your dashboard, then keep pressing next. Eventually you will find those who only use a name. New ones will be at the front of those.
ReplyDeleteAhah! That's where I've been going wrong. I'll check out the names now, so I can recognise new ones if they come. Thanks for the help :)
DeleteMy My, I made raspberry jam this morning, I have some more in the freezer and intend to have a trial batch with blue berries added.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds nice. It's good to have a little experiment now and again with some different flavours.
DeleteThank you so much for posting that - such clear instructions, I don't even think I could go wrong. I've never done any preserving before so this could be the first step.
ReplyDeleteNo problem at all - fingers crossed it all works. If you do make it, let me know?
DeleteI am going to have a go at making tomato Ketchup. Wish me luck.
ReplyDeleteIt's really tasty - much more flavour than a normal ketchup. As I said to mamasmercantile though, I'd perhaps not use the balsamic as its given the ketchup a very deep flavour, which, whilst yummy, might overwhelm?
DeleteGood luck and perhaps you could let me know how it goes?
Love cassis, I would imagine it adds a touch of luxury to the jam. I must remember to use mine like that.
ReplyDeleteI happened across it as a suggestion somewhere on the Internet. It is absolutely delicious. I guess mûre would have worked just as well, but I had brought some cassis back from my mums so I used that. I would certainly recommend it :)
DeleteI envy you always so busy and making the most yummy things.
ReplyDeleteLove the idea of the cassis in my jam.
I haven't had any liquor for over 40 years when I started taking one of my meds.
But I would love to taste this with toast.
cheers, parsnip
Your comment made me smile .... Lately I have spent a lot of time just drifting along, doing nothing much. I read other people's blogs and get cross with myself that I can't seem to get motivated to just do what needs to be done and then here you are being envious at how busy I am! Funny eh?
DeleteI have made ridiculous amounts of jam and chutney in the last three days though, so it's been a spurt of activity. I may continue getting stuff done......
The jam was delicious and didn't taste alcoholic in any way, just very posh!! :)
Lovely recipes I need to make more sauce as I am on my last brown sauce need to make Jam to...better get going I keep seeing it on people posts must get it on my to do list :-) dee x
ReplyDeleteI kept thinking to myself, if only I had a lovely pantry with polka dot shelves to store all this home made produce on....... :)
DeleteYou've been very productive, it all looks lovely.
ReplyDeleteI froze lots of tomatoes on one of our first years of growing and like you I found they were very 'wet' for cooking with afterwards. Now I try and process them all in some way before freezing instead.
I guess mum was planning on using them in casseroles and soups. As you say, is suspect finding other ways to process them would be preferable. I've never been able to grow enough to have any spare!
Delete