Homemade ketchup for children
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Bright, moderately thick, completely natural and absolutely calorie-free, without the addition of vinegar and starch - this is ketchup for children.
It is no secret that many children love various “harmful” sauces and they will not eat a cutlet unless you pour a large amount of, for example, ketchup on it. But ketchups that are prepared in factories often contain, among other ingredients, additives that seem to be allowed, but at the same time are undesirable for the child’s body. And we’re not just talking about vinegar or starch; dyes and flavor enhancers are especially scary. And even if the ketchup package says “Children’s”, you still can’t find anything better than homemade sauce!
It takes quite a long time to prepare homemade ketchup for children, and this is due to the fact that we will thicken it without starch, naturally, namely by boiling and evaporating excess moisture. This will make the ketchup concentrated, which means the taste will be enhanced without all sorts of enhancers and improvers.
Let's prepare the ingredients: it is advisable to take large and fleshy tomatoes. Any greens will do, I used cilantro, parsley and dill. To make ketchup taste like barbecue sauce, you can use brown sugar instead of white sugar, and replace plain sweet paprika with smoked, non-spicy paprika.
Ингредиенты
Tomatoes - 1 kg
Sweet pepper (red) - 200 g
Garlic - 3 cloves
Sweet onion (red) - 1 pc.
Sugar - 2 tbsp.
Salt - 1 tsp.
Lemon juice - 2 tbsp.
Greens (fresh) - 100 g
Sweet paprika (ground) - 1 tsp.
Рецепт
1. First, peel the tomatoes. Place a deep saucepan with enough water on the fire and bring it to a boil. Separately, prepare a saucepan or deep dish with plenty of very cold water. Let's make a shallow cross-shaped cut on each vegetable and lower the tomatoes into boiling water for 30 seconds, then immediately transfer them with a slotted spoon to cold water for literally a minute.
2. This “bathing” will help you easily remove the skin from the tomatoes.
3. Cut the peeled tomatoes into small pieces, also chop the onion, the pulp of the red sweet pepper (removing the seeds) and herbs (with stems possible). Cut the peeled garlic cloves in half. The size of the pieces is arbitrary, the main thing is that the blender can chop all the vegetables and herbs. Place everything in a blender bowl and blend until smooth.
4. Pour the vegetable puree into a frying pan with a wide bottom. Why wide? - This will slightly shorten the boiling time of the ketchup, because the area for evaporation of the liquid will be larger. Add sugar, salt and paprika to the puree. Over medium heat, bring the mixture to a boil, reduce the heat to low and, without covering the pan with a lid, cook the ketchup for about 2.5 hours, stirring occasionally. It's tempting to add starch and shorten the cooking time for the sauce, but we're cooking for kids, so the time investment is worth it!
5. The mass will become thicker, the volume will almost halve. Let's taste the ketchup - depending on the variety and ripeness of the tomatoes, you may need to add sugar or salt. If everything suits your taste, add lemon juice.
6. In principle, the ketchup is ready, but I wanted to make it a smoother consistency and get rid of the tomato seeds, as well as the pieces that the blender might not have been able to handle. Therefore, the next step is optional. Pour the ketchup into a sieve and wipe it. Of course, having gotten rid of the extra seeds and pieces, we also got rid of some of the grounds, so we pour the ketchup back into the pan and simmer a little more to the desired consistency (15-20 minutes).
7. Pour hot ketchup into jars, close the lids and let cool completely at room temperature.
8. Next, store in the refrigerator. After cooling, homemade ketchup for children will become a little thicker.
9. What about using ketchup? It can be used as a sauce, for example, for scrambled eggs. Can also be used as a tomato base for pizza. You can dip anything that goes with it into this ketchup, and even adults won’t refuse this sauce!
10. Bon appetit!