Tomato Ketchup

We are at that time of year when things are busy, busy, busy in the kitchen. As well as the courgettes (zucchini), there is no shortage of tomatoes to be preserved and stored for winter and the recipe I chose for today was Roasted Tomato Ketchup, from Preserves: River Cottage Handbook No.2 by Pam Corbin. It is delicious (like all of the recipes I have tried from this book) and will be perfect for our next burger night. If you have some tomatoes or passata, do give this recipe a try as the flavour is so much better than shop bought ketchup.

Roasted Tomato Ketchup

1 litre of roast tomato passata
100ml cider vinegar
50ml lemon juice
1 heaped tsp of celery salt
1 heaped tsp of mustard powder
1 heaped tsp of ground ginger
1/2 tsp of ground black pepper
1/4 tsp of ground cloves
100g demerara sugar

Put the passata, vinegar, lemon juice and spices into a heavy based pan. Bring to a simmer then add the sugar. Sir until dissolved then simmer, stirring occasionally, until it has reached a thick, but pourable consistency. Pam writes this should take 25 to 30 minutes, but I found it was nearer 50 minutes for me this morning.

Pour into warm, sterilised bottles or jars and seal with vinegar proof lids. Use within four months and once opened store in the fridge.

On a fruity note we are reaching the end of the plums and pears so instead of gorging on them all day, every day we are treating them like rare treats. Thankfully there are plenty of apples for cakes, tarts and chutneys, and the first of the peaches was ripe and ready to replace the pears for my breakfast this morning. I have got lots of dried plums (and cherries) put away for winter mornings and some of them will be added to my mincemeat. Much as I hate to talk about Christmas in September, now is the perfect time to make your mincemeat to give it time to mature for the perfect mince pies. I will post my recipe next week.