Homemade Ketchup by Elk in the Kitchen

For whatever reason, every food blog that I follow has been saying that popcorn is THE snack for the Oscars this year. Well, I say no to that. Mostly because I had a hunger much stronger than any popcorn could satisfy. So, I decided that the only option was chicken. Chicken breaded in Panko crumbs and then fried. And of course, it had to be accompanied by ketchup, because I'm not crazy. In an attempt to make myself feel less guilty, I made my own homemade ketchup. It was the first time I'd ever tried it, and let me tell you, it was worth it. Nobody really cared what my predictions were for the Oscars (mostly because I hadn't seen any of the movies), but everybody was waiting with bated breath to see what I put on their plates for dinner tonight.

Finished Ketchup, after 2 hours of Simmering

This meal is decently easy to make. The only trouble is that the ketchup takes 2+ hours to make, so you either need to make sure you cleared enough time out of your day, or just make it in advance (which is totally doable). For me, I made it today, because it's Sunday, and what else did I have to do? Nothing, I had nothing else to do. I actually decided extremely last-minute to make the ketchup. and luckily I had all the ingredients I needed. I started off by sweating chopped red onion and garlic in sunflower seed oil and salt, and then adding a chopped red chili pepper to sautee a bit with them.

After a few minutes, I added tomato paste, vinegar, sugar, molasses, water, lemon juice, and a mixture of ground spices.

I combined all the ingredients with a stir or two, waited until it boiled, and then reduced heat to low and let it simmer for two hours. The ketchup cooks down so much in that time, it's ridiculous. It probably ended up being one quarter of what the pot started with.

After the simmering and the considerable reduction, I blended the mixture with my immersion blender, and it was finished! Like I said, super easy, even if it did take a few hours.

Homemade Ketchup

Ingredients
1/2 red onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 red chili pepper, seeds in, diced
1/4 cup sunflower seed oil
3 tsp salt
1 sprig thyme
1 pinch black peppercorns
1 pinch fennel seeds
1 pinch coriander seeds
14 oz tomato paste
1.5 cups water
1 cup apple cider vinegar
2 Tbsp molasses
1/2 cup sugar
Juice of 1 lemon

Directions
1. Sweat onion and garlic in sunflower oil in salt for 2-3 minutes. Add diced pepper, and cook for a minute or two longer.
2. Grind thyme, peppercorns, fennel, and coriander. Add the spice mix, tomato paste, water, vinegar, molasses, sugar, and lemon to the pot with the sweating vegetables, and stir once or twice to combine.
3. Bring mixture to a boil, then reduce to low and let simmer for two hours. The ketchup will reduce considerably, and thicken up very nicely.
4. After two hours of simmer, use an immersion blender to blend the ketchup into a smooth mixture. If you don't have an immersion blender, you and blend in a blender in small batches. If worse comes to worst and you don't have any type of blender, the ketchup will still be delicious without it.
5. Enjoy with a burger, fries, chicken nuggets, or anything else you would like!