Homemade ketchup from ripe tomatoes, thick, no preservatives
Three kilos of August tomatoes, onion, apples for pectin and sweetness, a red pepper for colour, garlic and spices. Everything cooked down, pressed through a sieve and reduced until a spoon stands in it. The sugar and vinegar go in only at the end, so they neither caramelise nor boil away. Four bottles that taste of tomatoes, not sugar.
Your own work in that: 50 min.
- Chopping 20 min
- Cooking down 40 min
- Sieving 15 min
- Reducing 60 min
- Bottling 15 min
- Pasteurising 15 min
Step by step
0 / 7 doneChop the vegetables
Wash the tomatoes, cut out the stalks and chop into large chunks; don't peel, the skins and seeds stay in the sieve. Quarter the onions and the apples (cored, skin on), cut the pepper into pieces, peel the garlic. Everything into a large, wide pot.
Ingredients: 3000 g tomatoes · 2 pcs onions · 2 pcs apples · 1 pcs red pepper · 4 cloves garlic
TipMeaty varieties give thick ketchup in an hour. Watery greenhouse tomatoes can mean two hours of reducing and noticeably less ketchup.
Big chunks, skin on, into one potCook down
Add the allspice and bay leaves, cover and warm over low heat; the tomatoes release their juice within minutes. Then cook uncovered 40 minutes, stirring now and then, until everything has collapsed and the skins have come loose.
Forty minutes, until it collapsesBlend and sieve
Fish out the bay leaves and allspice berries. Blend with a stick blender, then press through a fine sieve into a clean pot with the back of a ladle. Skins and seeds stay in the sieve: discard them.
TipA sieve, not just a blender. Ground seeds give bitterness and skins leave small hard flecks. Sieving is the only way to a smooth, shop-style ketchup.
Through the sieve, pressing with a ladleReduce
Simmer the purée uncovered over medium heat 45–60 minutes, stirring more often towards the end, until it has thickened and reduced by more than half. Then add the sugar, vinegar, salt, paprika, pepper and cinnamon and cook another 10 minutes. Taste and adjust: it should be clearly sweet-and-sour and salty, because the flavour softens when cold.
Ingredients: 120 g sugar · 80 ml spirit vinegar, 10 % · 1½ tbsp salt · 2 tsp sweet paprika · 6 pcs allspice berries · 2 pcs bay leaves · 1 tsp black pepper · 1 pinch cinnamon
TipSugar and vinegar only at the end: sugar added early catches and caramelises, and vinegar simmered for an hour would boil off along with the acid that preserves.
Reduced by half, seasoned at the endThe thickness test
Put a spoonful of ketchup on a cold saucer. If no watery ring forms around it after a minute, it is ready. If it does, cook 10 minutes more and test again.
No ring on the saucer: readyBottle
Scald bottles or small jars (about 1 litre in total). Pour the hot ketchup through a funnel to 2 cm below the rim, cap tightly.
Hot, through a funnel, into scalded bottlesPasteurise
Stand the bottles in a pot on a cloth, add hot water to three-quarters of their height and pasteurise 15 minutes from the boil. Lift out, cool and check that the lids have sealed; keep any that have not in the fridge. Properly sealed bottles keep a year in a cool, dark pantry; keep an opened bottle in the fridge for up to 3 weeks.
Fifteen minutes, then the pantry
Before you start
Spicy
One or two fresh chillies with their seeds into the pot with the pepper: a hot ketchup that still tastes of tomato.
From roasted tomatoes
Roast the tomatoes with the onion, pepper and garlic 45 minutes at 200 °C before they go in the pot: a deeper, faintly smoky flavour and a shorter reduction.
Runny ketchup
Under-reduced, or watery tomatoes. Pour it back into the pot and simmer uncovered until it passes the saucer test; a spoon of tomato paste speeds it up noticeably.