All joking aside, I did make my own ketchup. Hours of toiling over a simmering pot to make a condiment so abundant and commonplace I could go to McDonald's and grab a handful of packets for free. So, was it worth it? You bet it was!
I never really thought that much about ketchup, it was just always there when I needed a dip for my fries. A couple months ago, I wrote about my tomatoes in facebook and Jeremy commented about how he used to eat homemade ketchup. He found a recipe for me to use, and I was all set!
I had forgotten about my desire to make ketchup until about a week ago, and I decided it was time to give it a try. The recipe Jeremy gave me made a thinner ketchup than what is commercially available, so I altered it a bit to get the result I was looking for. I really wanted to make a ketchup that looked like the leading brands, mainly because that is what I am used to.
I started with five pounds of tomatoes and pureed them in my food processor. I then strained them to remove the seeds and skin. I then pureed an onion and added it to the strained tomatoes and simmered the mixture on the stove. Once the mixture reduced to about half, I added some vinegar and spices, and continued to reduce the mixture until it looked like ketchup. I put the ketchup in a jar, then placed it in the refrigerator to cool. It was really quite easy, though time consuming.
I decided to first try my ketchup with french fries. To my delight, it looks and tastes just like ketchup. It has a more pronounced tomato flavor, and is really quite delicious.
Amazing, Slow-Food cooking! Looks delicious!
ReplyDeleteFinally your tomato harvest was not compromised or maybe you bought some at the sunspot... Hahaha.
ReplyDeleteWe had big troubles in Eastern France with every plant witch needs sun and warmth ! Our tomatoes became dead recently, too much rain and planted too close together ! It's too bad: we had very favored black tomatoes from russia. We had to make chutney with survived green tomatoes we ate only a few red tomatoes, those were really good ! That`s the game of gardening !!! I`m happy you could made some ketchup and other stuff !!! Isn't gardening a big pleasure !!!
All the tomatoes I used were from our garden, Daniel. Good ol' Wisconsin 55s! Our tomato supply is dwindling, though. We had a fungus wipe out half the plants. I think it was because we planted them too close together. All in all, it has been a good year. Yes, gardening is such a pleasure!
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