Many people can not imagine food without tasty ketchup. Ketchup, by right, is considered one of the most popular sauces in our country. On store shelves you can choose ketchup for every taste. The most popular ketchup producers - Heinz and Baltimore, offer a variety of novelties every year. We see ketchup advertising daily on the screens of our TV sets (for example, Baltimore's famous ketchup advertisement "While my favorite ketchup is flowing") and thanks to her, we learn about all the innovations.
Homeland of ketchup is considered to be China. It was in this country that the tomato sauce for the first time appeared like the modern ketchup. On the territory of Europe, ketchup started to be prepared in the seventeenth century, but the oldest recipes of this sauce did not contain tomatoes. In the Middle Ages, ketchup was prepared from nuts and mushrooms, less often from anchovies and beans. In those days, the basis for ketchup was fish brine, and tomato ketchup was only produced at the beginning of the twentieth century. Entrepreneur Henry Heinz was the first who prepared ketchup from tomato paste by vacuum evaporation. After that, Heinz established the production of ketchup and named his own name his own trademark. This method allowed to store ketchup in a room with room temperature for a long time. Much later, its density became the most valuable quality in ketchup. For this, starch was added to the sauce. Much later, various flavors and stabilizers appeared, originally ketchup was a sauce prepared exclusively from natural products.
The composition of modern ketchup includes the following ingredients: tomatoes, onions, Bulgarian pepper, black and red pepper, salt, sugar, vinegar.
Preparation of ketchup at home takes only a few hours. The principle of cooking ketchup is simple enough: tomatoes should be cut into medium-sized slices, put into a pan and put on a small fire, chop the onions, chop the Bulgarian peppers and cut them, and add these vegetables to tomatoes. Mixture of vegetables must be brought to a boil and boiled with the lid open until they are not respected until half. After that, the mixture should be cooled and rubbed through a sieve to obtain a homogeneous mass. The resulting mass should again be put on the fire, bring to a boil and add salt, pepper, sugar and vinegar. It is good to mix everything and cook for a few more hours, depending on the amount of liquid. Ready ketchup can be poured over cans for a twist for the winter, or cool and serve to various dishes. Preservation of ketchup is no different from preserving vegetables and salads.
Secrets of cooking ketchup:
- for the preparation of acute ketchup in the recipe you need to add paprika, chili and a large number of spices. Ketchup chili is considered to be the best sauce for shish kebab and many other meat dishes;
- The best spices for ketchup are: cinnamon, cloves, coriander, dry mustard, basil. All spices must be pre-mixed, wrapped in gauze and put in hot sauce for 20-30 minutes, then removed;
- for the production of sweet and sour ketchup it is necessary to increase
the amount of Bulgarian pepper, and in the process of cooking add sugar and citric acid; - ketchup can be cooked not only from tomatoes, ketchup from tomato paste is very popular. Some housewives prepare ketchup even from plums or apples, but the taste of this sauce differs significantly from traditional ketchup;
- the addition of chopped garlic in ketchup gives this sauce piquancy and sharpness, and a variety of fresh herbs - an unusual taste and aroma;
And another interesting fact about ketchup: ketchup, so popular sauce that in his honor was named the world-famous youth Spanish pop group Las Ketchup (Las Ketchup).