How to make ketchup
Ketchup with the right texture
Have you ever wondered how to make ketchup?
Let’s make some.
It’s actually surprisingly easy. I have seen some of the recipes out there call for it to be cooked for over 8 hours in a slow cooker, which I tested and turns out not to really be necessary. The ketchup I was able to make, not only had the right taste but due to a special ingredient we will add at the end, it also had the same texture as Heinz ketchup.
So let’s start making some ketchup!
Preparation
Ok first let’s gather up some spices!
So first we need ½ teaspoon of onion powder, ½ teaspoon of garlic powder, ¼ teaspoon of allspice, ¼ teaspoon of mustard powder, 2 cloves, a bay leaf, and although technically not a spice, ¼ cup of granulated sugar, and ½ teaspoon of salt to start us off. I stirred this out of compulsion.
Next, let’s move onto the tomato product. I have one 28 oz (800 gram) can of diced tomatoes, as well as 1 6 oz (170 gram), can of tomato paste. These two products together will be the base of our ketchup.
Alright, it’s now a matter of just heating up these tomatoes, adding the spices in, and letting this stew for a few minutes.
Cooking
Set a pot over medium heat, and add our tomato products in. In case you are wondering why we are adding it, the tomato paste has all of this great concentrated umami flavor we want to capture in our ketchup, without the need for us to cook down the tomatoes ourselves.
Alright, go ahead and add in the sugar and spices and give it a good stir. Now for me, you can see this mixture is way too thick, which resulted in a ketchup volcano that erupted all over me and my camera equipment. To prevent this from happening, we need to thin this out a little by adding some water. I just partially filled the tomato paste can, probably about ¼ cup of water. I mixed this up and also turned the heat down a little to medium-low. What we ideally want is a small but steady bubbling of our ketchup.
Now, the name of the game is to cook this for 20 minutes. This will really give a chance for the spices in our ketchup to come together.
Now, about 10 minutes into the cooking process, we need to add in our vinegar, in my case, I am using ½ cup of white distilled vinegar. Also to add a little more umami to the ketchup, I am going to add a little Worcestershire sauce.
We just wanna let this simmer for another 10 minutes, and we are done with the cooking phase. Pull this off the heat and we can move onto the next step.
Blending
After letting it cool for a few minutes, I poured the tomato mixture into my blender. Make sure to pull out that bay leaf, but now I wanna absolutely pulverize this stuff into a complete puree. I don’t wanna see an iota of the whole tomato here.
Now also at some point during this stage, I wanna add the secret ketchup ingredient I mentioned earlier, xantham gum. Xantham gum is a thickener that was discovered in the 60’s and this what thickens ketchup in that unique way you are familiar with in the glass bottles.
We only wanna add about 2 teaspoons of xantham gum, and this stuff is kinda hard to mix in and is best distributed by something like a blender. Pour this in and continue to blend for about 30 seconds.
At which point, we can bottle or jar this stuff up and put it into the fridge.
We wanna let this cool overnight in the fridge, where it will not only cool down to ketchup temp, but also let the spices come together even more.
The next day, adjust for salt in case it needs it, mine is ok, but yours may need a little bit more. Chef john always recommends salting a sauce at the temperature it is supposed to be enjoyed.
Condensed Recipe:
Ingredients:
½ teaspoon of onion powder,
½ teaspoon of garlic powder
¼ teaspoon of allspice
¼ teaspoon of mustard powder
2 cloves
a bay leaf
1/4 cup [100 g] of granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon of salt
28 oz [800 g] can of diced tomatoes
6 oz [170 g ] can of tomato paste
1/4 cup of vinegar
few dashes of Worstershire sauce
2 grams of Xantham Gum (optional)
Enjoy!