Ketchup...Catsup...

January 5, 2012 11:28 AM

Your very best ketchup recipe, please.

My kids and I want to make some homemade ketchup. I've never done anything like this before and don't actually like ketchup myself, but am hoping I'll like our special extra-good homemade kind. I would love to hear your favorite ketchup recipe.

posted by not that girl to Food & Drink (12 answers total)

This is the recipe I based the stuff on, the one time I made ketchup. It was delicious. I mostly followed the recipe, but adjusted the seasonings to be a bit more traditional - kept the cloves and fennel, ditched the anise (added more cloves to make up for some of it?), added allspice. It's important to keep seasoning until it tastes good to you. Look at a few recipes, and see what the things are that turn up frequently (must use) and what the things are that get added on as a novelty (keep in mind if you think your final result needs tweaking). I was surprised at how the cloves and allspice were essential to making it taste (to me) like ketchup instead of tomato sauce.
posted by aimedwander at 11:40 AM on January 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

I really love this one. Enough where I wished I ate/made enough fries to warrant regular making!
posted by Kitteh at 11:43 AM on January 5, 2012

This is the recipe I use, but I reduce the amount of brown sugar by half. I love how easy the recipe is and that the ketchup actually tastes like tomatoes.
posted by rhapsodie at 12:54 PM on January 5, 2012

Le Ketchup de Pirate à la Fraise, sans fraises (on account o’French always sound so nice)

500ml (2 cups) tomato sauce – plain tomato sauce, aye, none o’ that pasta sauce bilgewater
75g (1/4 cup) brown sugar – cassonnade fer ye lily-livered Frenchie pollywogs
60ml (1/4 cup) wine vinegar – red makes it nice ‘n’hearty
Small onion, diced
Clove of garlic, crushed
1 tbsp mustard
Dash of pepper
Salt (or fish sauce) to taste (1-2 tsp)
Pinch of sage
2-3 twigs of myrtle — aye, this done make th’recipe delicious fer red meat, ye can leave ‘t out if ya done have no myrtle, ya scurvy curs
Pinch of cinnamon

2 tbsp potato or corn starch

Ye mix all th’ingredients together in a saucepan, except the potato/corn starch, me swabbies, then bring it to a boil and let simmer fer 10 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool for 5-10 minutes, stir in th’potato starch, bring to a boil again while stirring for a minute or two, then remove from heat. Refrigerate. Should be nice ‘n’thick. Goes very well with fries (chips, ye British bilge rats) an’red meat. Arrr.
posted by fraula at 12:59 PM on January 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

I've made something similar to this green tomato ketchup recipe and it was really yum.
posted by *s at 1:01 PM on January 5, 2012

two pots. One fine-mesh sieve.

In one pot, boil for 10 minutes:
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons salt
4 cloves
3 cloves garlic
1/2 a piece of nutmeg
1 piece of Star Anise
1 stick of cinnamon
1 tbsp mustard seeds
2 bay leaves.
1 sprig of fresh or 1/2 teaspoon of dried thyme
2 sprigs of fresh or 1 teaspoon of dried dill

In the second pot, add a teaspoon of vegetable oil, and cook on medium until soft:
1 cup minced onion
1/2 cup minced carrot
1/3 cup minced celery

strain the contents of pot 1 into pot 2
1 12 oz can of tomato paste
Mix and bring to a simmer, and add
2 tablespoons white wine.
boil for 5 minutes, and add further sugar and salt to taste.

Puree all this with an immersion blender, cuisinart, or regular blender, and run through a fine mesh sieve back into the pot. Boil and reduce to appropriate consistency.
posted by Jon_Evil at 1:15 PM on January 5, 2012

Jon_Evil's instructions reminded me of my personal experience: the boiling down was going pretty well, tomatoes and liquids at a good steady simmer. Yet because of all the chunks+liquids, I didn't have a clear idea of how thick the resulting sauce would be. I pureed it and put it back on the heat. From that point on, the way thick sauces boil (blorp, blorp) meant the stove got covered in splattering little tomato speckles that I had not had to deal with up till that point. So my advice - wait till late in the process to do the pureeing.
posted by aimedwander at 1:27 PM on January 5, 2012

Banana Ketchup!
posted by yeahyeahyeahwhoo at 2:36 PM on January 5, 2012

I have been really enjoying the limited edition Heinz ketchup, which is made with balsamic vinegar instead of white vinegar. So that's my suggestion - try switching vinegar! Because this stuff is DELICIOUS.
posted by ErikaB at 2:54 PM on January 5, 2012

Filipino "white" vinegar as the sour element and fish sauce as the salty element. As for spices all you need is allspice. Add white sugar to taste.
posted by Infernarl at 4:36 PM on January 5, 2012

Your kids probably want tomato ketchup but just in case someone wants to go a little further afield, my wife just put up some cranberry ketchup. She used the recipe in Putting Food By but this one is pretty close.
posted by maurice at 5:24 PM on January 5, 2012

A tangent: For some interesting reading about ketchup, there is a chapter in this book:
What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures
posted by allelopath at 7:32 PM on January 5, 2012