Ketchup - red, green and yellow

The other day I went to the market where I found the most beautiful local tomatoes - green ones, yellow ones, red ones, in all shapes and sizes. I really wanted to use them for something so I decided to try making ketchup.

I followed Jamie Oliver's recipe (Natürlich Jamie, p 314).

 

First I fried onions, garlic, chilli, cloves, ginger, celery, fennel, coriander seeds, chopped basil stalks, salt and pepper until soft.

I split this mixture into 3 deep pans.  To the first I added a good half kilo of different kinds of red tomatoes plus half a kilo of tinned plum tomatoes.

To the other two I added green and yellow tomatoes.

I added 350 ml to all three pots and brought them to the boil to let the liquid reduce.

After the liquid reduced by half I puréed each mixture in a blender and then strained it through a sieve twice - this part was the most time consuming. To all three I added some basil, to the green tomatoes the most and also some parsley.

The resulting liquids went back into pots and on the stove. To each I added sugar and vinegar - I reccomend using less than in the recipe, maybe 2/3 and adding more after tasting. To the yellow sauce I added a bit of tumeric for extra colour.

While everything reduced again until it had the consistency of ketchup I sterilised the preserving jars.

And then filled the sauces into the jars while still very hot.

The red ketchup turned out quite hot and spicy, the yellow quite sweet and you can really taste the herbs in the green one. I'm not going back to bottled ketchup - this is too good! Now I'm hoping for lots of bbqs...

Venice

I went to Venice recently for a certain art event. I'm not a big fan of Venice and definitely not of the food there despite loving Italian cuisine. But I love staying in hotels and ordering room service!

Club sandwich, French fries, prosecco... what more do you need after hours of traipsing around art stuff...


We did get treated to a dinner that consisted of a lot of fish dishes in a lovely restaurant with a very grumpy owner. Of course I've forgotten the name of place and it was in a tiny alley way - I will never find it again...

The last night we went to another very good fish restaurant. This time the owner was not grumpy, on the contrary he was charming and pleasant and contributed to dinner being a delight.

 Amazing seafood pasta!

Tiramisu and profiteroles

Although dinner was both delicious and good value for your money I have again forgotten the name of the restaurant...  I'm starting to realise that blogging isn't easy and I still have a lot to learn! A post about decent Venice restaurants isn't very useful without names, addresses etc. Must remember to take note of the details...

BBQ

A couple of weeks ago I had some friends over for dinner and finally lit my bbq for the first time in 2011.

We had smoked beetroot salad à la Jamie Oliver (Natürlich Jamie, p. 108). I got slightly carried away in the kitchen and forgot to take pictures of the finally result.

I made pork belly rubbed with a lot of spices, pre cooked in the oven and then grilled.The recipe was also from Jamie Oliver, from his website: http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/pork-recipes/southern-barbecued-pork-belly
It was the first time I made pork belly and I definitely will again. The meat I got from Metzgerei Wipkingen in the Viadukt Markthalle - I highly recommend it!

With the skin I made crackling, which was quite good, the pork juices served as gravy.

 

For dessert we had home made strawberry ice cream - I love my Krups ice cream maker - it's so easy to use!