Years ago I made the best green tomato chilli ketchup but somehow lost the printed copy of the recipe and I’ve been kicking myself ever since, especially as the recipe was removed from the website I’d found it on. Sigh. This year when dad said did I want any green tomatoes I searched harder online for something similar to the previous recipe - and found this Green Tomato Recipe on the From The Larder website, and it gets a huge thumbs up from me.
And of course with anything made with green tomatoes - fresh bright green tomatoes go in, and ends up as something more brown - but don’t let that put you off.
No really don’t.
This has a great taste and is so useful. I love it alongside roasted squash and rice and even in sandwiches.
The recipe calls for 1kg of green tomatoes, and while I had a lot from dad (and I mean a lot) some had ripened as they sat alongside the already red ones and so had made their way into roasted tomato pasta sauce and subsequently the freezer, I was still a few short. And this handful topped me up to the full kilo - a quick last picking from my own tomato plants and I was good to go.
There’s a bit of chopping involved as you’d expect, but nothing too onerous. And don’t they look so fresh and vibrant?
I debated (with myself, in my head!) about if I should use my preserving pan or not. And in the end the logical answer of ‘you’re preserving so why the heck not’ won out, and I’m so glad I did.
It is a large pan, and even though the amount of ketchup I was making was relatively small using this pan meant I was confident it would all fit in and there’d be no risk of anything bubbling over.
In preparation I’d even saved one of those almost 700g passata jars, but I didn’t use that in the end instead opting for smaller jars. I mean, it often takes me more than one attempt to use all the passata and I knew I’d be using the ketchup in smaller amounts, so it made sense to fill smaller jars.
This is very much like the recipe I remembered and I’m so pleased to have found it, and to have had the green tomatoes. I think next time I’d probably add more than one green chilli, and would consider adding some grated ginger too for an extra bit of zing, but that’s for next time when no doubt I’ll have lost the recipe again.
We’re already almost through one of the smallest jars, with the others safely stored on the top shelf of my pantry. And I couldn’t be happier!
