Homemade ketchup (or almost)

Version française disponible ici !

“Or almost” yes, because trying to equal ketchup, it’s a bit like trying to make Nutella, or the creamy rice pudding of my mother, just a plagiarism!

But it’s a good plagiarism this time! The color may be completely different from ketchup, as the texture, but the taste is quite close! So, even if we don’t get some real ketchup, we get a good sweet tomato sauce which will be perfect with your “junky” food :)

The recipe is from “Oh my food” website, I just switched some things according to my whims :p

For about 350ml of sweet tomato sauce in « ketchup » style:

• 500g fresh tomatoes
• ½ big red onion
• 1 ½ garlic clove (you can use 2, I was really squeamish)
• 1 little pinch of Espelette hot pepper
• ¼ tsp paprika
• 1 little pinch of four-spices mixture (five-spices normally, well… ^^)
• ½ tbs tomato paste
• 50g brown sugar
• 1 tbs olive oil (rapeseed in the original recipe but I did wrong :o)
• 60ml cider vinegar

Remove the skin of the tomatoes after slightly slashing them and boiling them a few seconds (no, we’re not in a horror movie, even if we finally get a nice fake blood from 80’s movies :p). The skin will remove by itself. 

Blend tomatoes to a thin purée – peduncle removed. 

Brown onion and garlic thinly sliced into some olive oil (don’t forget to remove germ from garlic pleaz!). 

Season with salt, pepper and spices. It’s not easy to measure spices I think, so here is a picture to show you what I used:

Mix well everything and gently brown. Add the other ingredients: tomato purée, tomato paste, brown sugar and vinegar. 

Those pictures are just here to show you my new pink frying pan :D

Reduce for 30 minutes on a low heat.

When sauce is reduced, blend everything thinly once again. I advise you to use a “hand blender”, it’s perfect!

Let cool down and keep well closed in the fridge (in a jam pot for example ;)

Olivier says that we can keep it this way for one month. Let’s see how long we’ll keep it at home ;)

SERVING SUGGESTIONS

Well, I’m sure you’ve got a lot of ideas! Some potatoes cooked in the oven? Used in a completely homemadevegetarian burger?

TIPS AND TRICKS

It was my first try and even if it was really good, I think next time I will try to adjust quantities a bit to fit more my tastes, it means:

• 2 garlic cloves (for that matter…)
• 1 whole tbs tomato paste
• A bit less of sugar, maybe 40-45g, but it still must be ketchup, right!
• And to finish, I will reduce the sauce for a longer time to get a thicker texture.

And here is a nice sweet tomato sauce without colorants and preservatives :)

Rose.