Cherry Ketchup
- Total Time
- 45 minutes
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
- 1½pounds cherries
- 2tablespoons whole mace blades or 2 teaspoons ground mace
- 1½teaspoons black peppercorns
- 1teaspoon dry yellow mustard
- 1teaspoon whole cloves
- ¾teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ⅓teaspoon ground nutmeg, preferably freshly grated
- 1teaspoon kosher salt
- ¼ to ½cup apple cider vinegar, preferably unfiltered
Preparation
- Step 1
In a saucepan, combine the cherries with ½ cup water. Bring to a simmer over medium-low heat and cook until the cherries soften, 8 to 10 minutes. Let cool slightly, then pass the cooked cherries and their liquid through a food mill, or press them through a colander, to make a chunky juice.
- Step 2
In a clean saucepan, combine the juice with the spices and salt. Simmer over low heat until reduced by half, about 15 minutes, stirring often.
- Step 3
Add ¼ cup vinegar and keep cooking until thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Remove a bit of the ketchup, let cool and taste. Adjust salt, spices and vinegar until the flavor is sweet, spicy and tart. The ketchup will keep refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.
- Mace blades are available at penzeys.com.
Private Notes
Cooking Notes
Sweet or sour cherries?
Poorly written recipe. Start by pitting the cherries, then cook. Cook the cherries for 20 minutes. I used a potato masher to break them up roughly. First tried a manual food mill, but the pits jammed it, and after picking the pits out by hand, it was ineffective on the skins. Second try was the stick blender, but it splashed too much and I ended up wearing some of it. The mini prep got the job done. Prior to spicing, then as a finish after cooking.
This one’s a dud. Don’t bother. Comes out way too watery and cooking it down enough kills the flavors. Maybe some day I’ll simmer just the vinegar and spices, then make a smoothie with that and frozen pitted cherries.
Sweet or sour cherries?
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