Finger-Licking Tomato Ketchup for Winter

Cooking method

1. Step 1:

   

   For this ketchup, start with fresh ripe tomatoes—meaty paste varieties are best, since they need less cooking down (I use a kind my supermarket sells as "canning tomatoes"). From the vegetables you'll also need onion, and garlic is optional—here it shouldn't dominate but stay completely in the background, unnoticed,

2. Step 2:

   

   so you can leave it out entirely—the original recipe has no garlic—but adding a single clove to the whole batch won't hurt a thing. Rinse the tomatoes well under the tap and be sure to dry them: let the water drain off completely and air-dry, or pat them with a towel. Then chop the tomatoes and put them in a pot.

3. Step 3:

   

   Add the onion, chopped the same way, and a clove of garlic if you can't picture ketchup without it.

4. Step 4:

   

   Set the mixture over medium heat and simmer until the vegetables soften.

5. Step 5:

   

   In the modern version you can simply blitz the cooked tomato mixture with an immersion blender, which is what I did—it's easier and faster. The Soviet recipe called for pressing it through a sieve—but the result was worth it: the ketchup came out not just fragrant but also wonderfully smooth.

6. Step 6:

   

   Next comes another half-forgotten step: the spices, the most important being celery seed (you can manage without it, but if you have celery seed, add it without a second thought—the aroma turns out superb!). Put all the spices in a cheesecloth pouch, tie it tightly with string, and drop it into the simmering sauce. Cook with the spices for 20–30 minutes so they have time to release their flavor.

7. Step 7:

   

   Then fish out the spice pouch and discard it. Pour the boiling-hot ketchup into sterilized jars, seal them right away, and tuck them under a blanket to cool slowly. In this case I had to boil the jars together with their lids, given how they're built.