I don’t suppose I am the only one who had a lot of unripened tomatoes before the frost hit last week. I picked all I could, and tried to think of the quickest and easiest way of using them, but at the same time making something worth the effort.
Just as I was pondering all this, I came across this recipe by Chef Stef at The Kiwi Fruit for a green tomato drink which I made one batch of. It was, as she promised, delicious – hot or cold, or even spiked. Something like a salad in a glass.
Wondering what to do with the rest, it occurred to me I had never made ketchup from green tomatoes before, and as ketchup is such a useful staple, it seemed like the best idea for using up the rest of my unripe harvest. In order to make a recipe I could safely can, I looked on line for a tested recipe which you can find here. I made a few changes, adding a bit of ginger, pureeing the mixture and skipping the salting step. I made only half the recipe and ended up with roughly 6 cups.
Green Tomato Ketchup
Ingredients
3 lbs green tomatoes
1 1/2 lbs onion
1 Tbsp salt
1 inch of fresh ginger
1 12 cups cider vinegar
1 3/4 cup sugar
3 Tbsp pickling spices
Method
Chop the tomatoes, onion and ginger and place in a pot. Add salt and vinegar and cook until softened. Puree them in a blender and return to the pot. Add sugar and the spices tied up in a piece of cheesecloth. Bring to a boil and simmer until the mixture thickens, between 40 minutes and a hour.
If you’ve never made your own ketchup before, you will be surprised at how fresh and flavourful it is compared to the store-bought varieties.
Besides, there are so many kinds of fruit and spices you can use. Other ketchup recipes I have made are:
Linked to Fiesta Friday #91
Along the Grapevine 