I made Ketchup!!

[Anonymous]

I said in the last ketchup post that I was going to try to make some, and I finally did today!

My recipe is adapted from the very LARGE recipe that was in the 4th edition of "Putting Food By". I posted that recipe in the thread entitled "Ketchup!" for those of you ambitious enough to make an entire gallon.

Here's the basic recipe that I started with (keep reading... this isn't what I recommend):

6lbs ripe tomatoes
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 cup cider vinegar
16 whole cloves
1/2 stick cinnamon crushed
1/2 tsp whole allspice
1 tsp celery seeds
1/2 cup Splenda (I used the bulk kind for baking, not the packets)
2 tsp salt

After cooking it for a while I tasted it, and added 1/2 small clove of garlic and cooked it some more. I should have just added the entire clove. I also added 1/2 of a 6 oz can of tomato paste to thicken it up and take down the sweetness a bit. Another strange thing I added was 4 tablespoons of Benefiber. It's not as crazy as it sounds. Benefiber is just guar gum, and guar gum is often used as a thickener. It actually helped!

My critique of this homemade ketchup: definitely a different consistency than Heinz. Not only does sugar make things taste good, it gives things a nice silky texture that this stuff is lacking. The taste is okay. I haven't eaten it with anything yet, but I'll try it with some eggs tomorrow morning. If I were to make it again I would change the recipe a bit. I think that this recipe has too much sweet spice. I would totally omit the allspice. It's something most people don't keep in their pantry anyway, and it doesn't need it. I would also attempt to make it with erythritol instead of Splenda. Being so much like sugar, it might lend the needed texture that this is lacking. I would use the exact same amount - 1/4 cup - even though erythritol is only about 70% as sweet as sugar. I just think this came out a bit too sweet. I might think that because I didn't eat it with anything yet, but even if my next attempt came out not sweet enough I could just add a packet or two of splenda to the almost finished product. Another tweak would be more onion and more garlic. Maybe 1/3 cup of onion and a small clove of garlic. As for the thickness... I think the tomatoes I used were a bit too watery. I should have used sauce tomatoes. I just picked up my farm share today (we buy a share in a local organic farm every year) and there was a load of beefsteak and heirloom slicing tomatoes. Romas would be ideal.

Overall, it's okay and totally edible. I will definitely make it again with the adjustments I mentioned. If you're going to try it yourself here is the recipe I recommend:

6lbs ripe tomatoes
1/3 cup onion, chopped
1 small clove garlic, crushed
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 cup cider vinegar
16 whole cloves
1/2 stick cinnamon crushed
1 tsp celery seeds
1/2 cup Splenda (bulk kind for baking, not the packets)
OR 1/2 cup erythritol + some splenda to adjust sweetness
2 tsp salt
4 TBS Benefiber
canned tomato paste as needed to adjust taste/thickness/sweetness

DIRECTIONS:
Wash, peel, core, quarter tomatoes. Combine tomatoes, onions, garlic and cayenne in large stainless steel kettle. Bring to boiling and simmer for 20 min. In a small pot bring vinegar and spices tied in bag (I just threw them in there and strained it through a fine mesh seive) to boiling. Remove from heat. After 20 min, add to tomato mixture, and boil all together for about 30 min. Put through a food mill (I used a blender), return to pot. Add Splenda or Erythritol and salt, boil gently, stirring until volume is reduced by half and mixture rounds on spoon without separating. Add Benefiber and stir until dissolved. Taste and adjust the sweetness (add more splenda to sweeten or add some tomato paste to tone it down) If you want to process this for putting up do the following: Fill pint jars, leaving 1/8 inch headroom; ajust lids. Process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes. Remove jars, cool upright.



I didn't process mine. I cleaned and filled an old ketchup container (20 oz) and stuck it in the fridge--this shouldn't go bad too quickly since it has such a high acidity, but I would use it within a couple of weeks. There was quite a bit left over after filling the bottle, so I scraped it into an ice cube tray and stuck it in the freezer. I'll pop out the cubes tomorrow and store them in a zip lock bag in the freezer for later. I just don't think this recipe is big enough to warrant processing jars to be put up--I think it made about 30 ounces. But that's entirely up to you.

I hope you all try it out and post your results. I kind of hope someone adapts this recipe using just canned tomato paste or puree instead of fresh tomatoes--which yeild inconsistent results and get kind of pricey in the colder months.

Enjoy!!
Hayley

[brandywine1241]

Another recipe

This recipe is on the back of the ThickenThin package. I think it is very good.

3/4 C tomato juice
1 T sugar or equivalent (I used 1 packet of Splenda)
3 T cider vinegar
1/2 t salt
1/4 t onion powder
pinch cloves (optional)
1 T ThickenThin not/Starch

Mix first 6 ingredients. Whisk in ThickenThin. Let stand a few minutes.
Store in refrigerator.

[carolyn]

great reciepe.Thank you for it.

[scott123]

I wrote a whole treatise on ketchup making, only to later find out that the majority of this discussion dates back to last year. Oh well, if anyone is still interested in recreating lc Heinz ketchup at home, here goes.

I've been trying to recreate heinz now for a few months and although I've made good headway, the prize continues to allude me.

I have learned a thing or two in my quest, though.

Firstly, I think that thickeners have no place in lc ketchup. Corn syrup doesn't lend that much of a mouthfeel to regular ketchup. The heinz 1 carb has a flawless texture, all acheived without thickeners/multiple sweeteners. If they can do it, we can do it too. I think Hayley's biggest obstacle to getting the right texture is the fresh tomatoes. From what I understand Heinz does (or did) use fresh tomatoes during particular seasons of the year but the rest of the time they use paste. Even when they use fresh tomatoes, though, they still reduce them long enough to match the consistency of a paste. So, either one has to boil away a LOT of water, or start with paste. I start with paste.

The next thing to be aware of when attempting to duplicate Heinz is the ingredients on the label. If you're a big fan of garlic, fine, add garlic, but if duplicating Heinz is your goal, I can tell you without a doubt, there is no garlic in Heinz. And the onion is powdered not fresh (not that fresh wouldn't make a better ketchup, though). Thanks to the ingredient list, there's only two question marks - 'natural flavors' and the mysterious 'spices.' Those spices boggle the mind, I tell ya

The history of ketchup is a bit sketchy, but as far as I know Heinz invented 'their' ketchup back in the late 1800s in Pennsylvania. This limits the scope of the spices they might use, but not much. I have pondered the spices in Heinz for hours on end. Allspice is without a doubt the only spice I'm certain of. As I write this, it occurs to me, why not pickling spice? I've been going with allspice, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg, but it's quite possible the bay leaf from pickling spice is the missing link in the chain. That will be my next attempt.

As far as 'natural flavors' are concerned, I go back and forth a bit, but at the moment, I think it's MSG. If you check the Heinz webpage FAQ, they say that they don't add MSG to their ketchup. I think this is a loophole based on terminology. They can use a MSG derived substance like hydrolyzed protein - basically the same thing as MSG - and yet legally be allow to say "our ketchup contains no MSG". Tomatoes do have naturally occuring MSG, so this can confuse things a bit as well. I've been adding very small amounts and I think it works. I think that once (if) I work out the spices, detecting the presence of additional msg should be easier.