Move Over, Heinz!

It’s barbeque season so it seems like a good time to continue with the homemade condiments theme. Why not make a full-flavored ketchup minus the high fructose corn syrup and “natural flavoring”? Because despite the perfectly vine-ripened tomato pictured on the bottle, there is nothing healthy about corn syrup.

Makes…well, you’ll see.

Step 1: Chop up 2 pounds of tomatoes (I used plum), 1 onion, and 1 anaheim chile.



Step 2: Put everything you chopped into a saucepan (or Dutch oven), along with 1 smashed garlic clove, 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt, 1/2 cup white vinegar, and 5 tbsp brown sugar.



Step 3: Make a spice bundle. Put 4 whole cloves, 1 bay leaf, 1 cinnamon stick, 1/4 tsp celery seeds, 1/4 tsp chile flakes, and 1/2 tsp whole allspice into a little piece of cheesecloth and tie it up (I can never find the kitchen twine that I always think I have so I cut off a small sliver of cheesecloth and use that). Add this to your pot.



Step 4: Cook everything until it gets nice and soft (30-40 min.).




Step 5: Take out the spice bundle and puree everything else until smooth. Strain this into a saucepan.



Step 6: Cook the sauce down until thickened, about 30 minutes.




And finally you get…



TWO WHOLE TABLESPOONS OF KETCHUP. Ketchup fail!

Ketchup Postmortem: Maybe I didn’t puree everything enough so it didn’t make it through the sieve? Maybe the holes in the sieve are too tiny? Or, maybe it was the recipe.

The recipe came from a 2009 issue of Saveur so I checked their site to see if there were any comments on it. But! Following the same intro paragraph there is a different recipe in place of the one they featured in print. VERY suspicious. So maybe it was the recipe after all. I’d like to think so.

(BTW, the new recipe calls for a can of whole tomatoes so you have less to lose going into it. One ketchup fail will not deter me from my mission in making homemade ketchup.)

In the meantime, here are the ingredients for this recipe…if you dare.

Ingredients:

2 lbs tomatoes
1 onion
1 anaheim chile
1 garlic clove
1/2 cup white vinegar
5 tbsp brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
4 whole cloves
1 bay leaf
1 cinnamon stick
1/4 tsp celery seeds
1/4 tsp chile flakes
1/4 tsp whole allspice

Recipe Source: Saveur