Curry Ketchup

Our homemade version

Our first night in Bruges, but fourth night in Belgium, we finally had an order of frites. Rather than the standard mayonnaise we opted for the house special sauce - mayonnaise, curry ketchup and raw onions. It was crazy good. And the curry ketchup blew me away. Had we not been in public, I would have licked the plate clean. In between the mouthfuls of fries, I kept telling Craig that I had to try to make the ketchup when we got home.

And yesterday I did. Before I go into details, a quick aside: If you are an American woman in your thirties, you probably remember how popular Cabbage Patch Kids were. And you might remember that they were also ridiculously expensive. I wanted one soooooo bad. Finally, one of my grandmothers caved in and gave me one. Well, a homemade version of one that she bought at a church bazaar anyway. My little 8 year old self was so disappointed. Why, you are probably wondering, am I telling you about Cabbage Patch Kids when I should be telling you about the curry ketchup I just made? Because, you see, my sad little homemade Cabbage Patch Kid was to the "real" Cabbage Patch Kid as my sad little homemade curry ketchup is to the "real" curry ketchup we had in Bruges.

I was so disappointed that my excitement and high expectations weren't met, that I didn't notice that the ketchup actually tasted quite good. But the texture was way off. Craig suggested I give it another whirl with the hand blender, and when I got home from work today I did (so it had chilled overnight. I have no idea if this makes a difference, but there you go). It's definitely smoother than it started out, but nowhere near as smooth as commercially prepared ketchup.

Had I never had the real deal, I would probably be very happy with this recipe. And had I simply added curry powder to commercially prepared ketchup as my internet research told me to, I'd probably be even happier. But in the spirit of our grand experiment and the original purpose of this blog, I decided to make it all from scratch.

I'm learning that there are some things you will just never be able to recreate at home. Ketchup is definitely one of them. Give this recipe a try, but keep in mind that this is not the ketchup we're used to. The texture is different, it's not nearly as smooth. And it doesn't have the sweetness that commercial ketchup does (no high fructose corn syrup here). I don't know if I'm entirely ready to give up my highly processed, yet so delicious, ketchup just yet. But I am ready to make room for an additional condiment on the refrigerator door.

the finished product

Curry "Ketchup"
adapted from the ketchup recipe in Karen Solomon's jam it, pickle it, cure it

1 cinnamon stick
5 whole cloves
5 cardamom pods, crushed
1 star anise
10 black peppercorns
1 (28 oz) can whole tomatoes
1 large yellow onion, quartered
1 clove garlic
2 Tbl canola oil
1 1/2 Tbl curry powder
1 tsp ground all spice
2-3 splashes of Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp dried thyme
2 tsp kosher salt
1/3 cup loosely packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup white wine vinegar
1 tsp smoked paprika

Tie up the cinnamon, cloves, cardamon, star anise and peppercorns in cheesecloth and set aside.

Pour the tomatoes, and their juice, into a food processor. Puree until completely smooth. Set all but 1/4 cup aside. Add the onion and garlic to the remaining tomato puree and process until smooth.

In a large dutch oven (use the biggest you can - this splatters like crazy), heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion/garlic puree, the curry powder, all spice, worcestershire sauce, thyme and salt. Stir well. Cook for 10-12 minutes, stirring frequently. The mixture should reduce and be quite thick.

Add the tomato puree, sugar and vinager. To further reduce, turn the heat down and simmer, uncovered, for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the spice bundle you made earlier and reduce an additional 10 minutes.

Pull out and discard the spice bundle. Stir in the paprika. Simmer for another 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Pour into a container (I used a glass quart canning jar) and let it cool completely, preferably overnight.

With an immersion blender, blend until the consistency is a bit smoother. I just stuck the blender right in the glass quart - I'm sure this is safe, right?

This should keep in the fridge for at least 2 months.