Playing Ketchup

 

A few years ago my husband and I were waiting to catch a bus to Eugene and we were hungry.  There is a restaurant in between the train station and the bus station that seems way too nice to be in that area.  We ordered their parmesan fries and they came with the tastiest condiment.  Roasted Red Pepper Ketchup.  I asked if they knew what was in there and honestly I cannot remember at this point if they knew anything, but I had to have this at home.  I made this a while back but found the recipe recently.  It was so good.  I threw it together based on other ketchup recipes I saw around the web.  It was excellent on burgers, garden burgers, oven fries, you name it. 

 

Roasted Red Pepper Ketchup

2 red peppers
head of garlic
red pepper flakes
~ 1 lb. tomatoes (I had 1.6 lbs. on the vine with stem and seeds still intact. I figure once those were gone it was close)
small yellow onion
2 Tbs. tomato paste
2 Tbs. brown sugar
1/4-1/3 C. red wine vinegar
2 tsp. worcestershire sauce
21 seasoning salute (salt free seasoning mix from Trader Joe's)
salt
sriracha (optional)

Roast peppers. For this I put the peppers a couple of inches away from the broiler and let each side blister and blacken before I turned it to the next side. When all sides are blistered and blackened, put in a plastic bag and close and let steam and cool down. Remove skin and seeds from peppers.

Roast garlic, tomatoes, and onion. I put these all in at the same time and took out the onion at about 25 minutes. Preheat oven to 350. Quarter tomatoes and remove seeds. Quarter onion. Lightly oil a baking sheet and place veggies on it to roast. Chop off top of garlic head to expose cloves. Remove excess skin. Lightly coat in oil and shake red pepper flakes over the top of it. I probably used around 1/2 - 1/4 tsp. Wrap head in foil and put in oven with the baking sheet. Remove onion before it starts browning too much. I had the tomatoes and garlic in for around 45 minutes and then turned off the heat and let them sit while I went to the store to get olive oil.

Puree peppers, tomato, onion, and garlic. I used around 2 tbs. garlic and most of the onion. Add tomato paste, brown sugar, red wine vinegar, worcestershire, seasoning (I used three shakes), and salt (I used probably around 2 tsp. of kosher salt). Add sriracha ( I used about 7-10 drops). Bring to boil and then reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes or so. Adjust vinegar, sugar, and salt to achieve a sweet but tangy flavor. I also cooled this down before we ate it because I didn't want it warm, more around room temp.