My Mother's Tomato Ketchup Recipe

The inspiration for this blog post came, when my mother had a good look at a certain recipe blog. It made her decide to share her famed (at least in the family) recipe for preparing tomato ketchup, which is as follows, with all netizens.

Ingredients:

• 5 kg tomatoes
• 750 gm sugar
• 250 gm onions
• 100 gm ginger
• 50 gm garlic
• 1 cup malt vinegar
• 1 tea-spoon sodium benzoate
• 25 gm garam masala (cumin, black pepper, cloves, 1/4 inch of a cinnamon stick, all ground together)
• salt (to taste)
• red chilly powder (to taste)

Directions:

1. Chop the tomatoes, onions, garlic and ginger and steam these in a pressure cooker (Turn the heat down as soon as steam builds up and then, turn it off after another five minutes.).
2. Let these cool and then liquefy in a food processor.
3. Pass the mixture through a coarse sieve (with large mesh-size), so that the pulp passes through, leaving only the skins behind.
4. Add the sugar and heat on a fire, so that the sugar dissolves.
5. Put a drop of the liquid on a plate, to check the density. If it runs over, then it needs to be thickened more by heating for a slightly longer period. If it does not, then it is done.
6. After achieving the required density, add salt and simmer for another 10 minutes.
7. Add the garam masala, sodium benzoate and red chilly powder to the malt vinegar. Mix well and add to the main mixture.
8. Pour the (still hot) liquid into bottles, but do not close the lids, which is to be done only after the ketchup has cooled to room temperature.