How to make tomato ketchup (sauce) at home using fresh tomatoes - Recipe with detailed process

Tomato ketchup and sauce are used in almost every household in south Asia. Its sweet and sour taste is preferred over chilli sauce by the youth and old generation as well. It enhances the taste of breakfast dishes like noodles and parathas. It can be prepared easily at home at a time when prices of tomatoes fruits are at its lowest in the market. In this way you can prepare it according to your taste and under hygienic conditions with half of the cost of a bottle of tomato ketchup purchased from market. Recipe is very simple and needs no expertise or practice for its preparation. Local varieties of the tomato plant are better than the improved ones as long as tomato fruits are useed for sauce or ketchup preparation. Care should be taken in selecting tomatoes. Ripe tomatoes are good for sauce preparation. Green and unripe tomatoes should be removed from the lot to avoid discoloration of the sauce. The tomatoes should be thoroughly washed to remove the contaminants from the surface. After washing, cut the tomatoes into small pieces before boiling.

The list of ingredients needed to make tomato ketchup is given below. A bundle of spices is made in a muslin cloth and cooked with tomato juice.

Ingredients

Ripe and juicy Tomatoes: 1.25 kg.

Vinegar: 50 ml

Salt: 10 g

Sugar: 100 g

Preservative: a pinch

Ingredients for making spice bundle

2 large size Onions

2 pods of Garlic

8-10 corns of Pepper

Half flat teaspoon of Jeera

5 or 6 Cardamom pieces

Mace a small quantity

2 pieces of Cinnamon bark

Half teaspoon of red Chillie powder

Method of ketchup making

Take about 1.25 kg ripe red tomatoes and wash them properly. After wash, cut the tomatoes into fine pieces and remove green or bruised portions. Put in a thick bottomed vessel and cook for about 10 minutes. When skins of tomatoes start to curl remove the vessel from the fire. Remove seeds and skin by churning and straining the material. Cut Onions and Garlic into fine pieces and smash the spices slightly. Put them into a piece of thin muslin cloth and tie it up into a firm bundle and drop it into juice. Add about 30 g of sugar to the juice and cook till volume is reduced to less than half. Leave the spice bundle in the juice as it is cooking. Add remaining sugar and salt. Cook further till juice thickens to sauce consistency. Add vinegar and remove from fire. Remove the spice bundle from the ketchup. Mix in the preservative and bottle in airtight jars.