Homemade Tomato Ketchup

A tomato glut is something I never had, but when a friend posted on Facebook that she had too many beef tomatoes so the idea of trying to make ketchup came to mind. There are loads of recipes on the web, but this is the one from www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk was the one I settled on, partly because it coincided with the weight of tomatoes I was given.

Ingredients
2kg tomatoes, roughly chopped
2 onions, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
150ml red wine vinegar
100ml water
½ tsp black peppercorns
1 blade mace (I didn't have any so I used 1/4tsp ground nutmeg instead)
4 allspice berries (Didn't use any as ones I thought I had were juniper!)a
2 cloves
½ tsp crushed dried chillies (used only 1/4tsp as our chilli flakes are really hot, then saw the note about omitting this if making for children!)
2 bay leaves (forgot to add them!)
1 tbsp light brown sugar

Put tomatoes, garlic, 50ml of the vinegar and the water into a large saucepan and simmer gently for 40 minutes until the vegetables are soft and pulpy.

Whilst the tomatoes are cooking, put the rest of the vinegar into a little saucepan together with the  all the other ingredients apart from the sugar.  Simmer over a low heat for 10 minutes then turn off and leave to one side.

After 40 minutes, puree the tomato pulp with a stick blender then strain and rub the pulp through a sieve into a clean pan.  Make sure you get as much of the tomato pulp through the seive as possible, only leaving the seeds and skins behind.

Strain the vinegar and spices into the pan with the sieved tomato.  Add the sugar and simmer over a medium heat until thickened and reduced to a thick consistency, about 500ml.

Remove from the heat and season to taste. Pour the ketchup into a jug and use a funnel to transfer it into sterilised bottles or jars. Seal immediately and cool completely before labelling and storing.

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