Sweet and Sour Five Spice Peach Ketchup

Ingredients:
5 cups pureed peaches
1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1 cup water
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
1 tablespoon Chinese five spice
1 teaspoon ground roasted ginger
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

Prep your jars/lids. Place all ingredients in a heavy-bottomed nonreactive pot (I used my enameled cast iron Dutch oven). Bring to a rolling boil and cook until thickened to ketchup consistency*, about 20-30 minutes. Ladle into pint jars leaving 1/4 inch headroom. Process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes.

*The sauce does thicken up a bit upon cooling. You can place a small amount on a dish and chill it in the refrigerator (while you're cooking the ketchup) to check the cooled consistency if you'd like.

Yield: about 4 8-oz jars

Note: A great source for canning information is the Blue Book guide to preserving. I highly recommend it for learning how to can. Here are some of my other favorite canning books and supplies.

My thoughts:

I love making fruit ketchups because I hate regular tomato ketchup but I love to dip. When I received a whole case of Washington state peaches from the generous people at Sweet Preservation, I have to say, I was a little overwhelmed. I ended up making four different small batches of jam (tune in next week for two new jam recipes) and still had a lot of peaches left. A peach ketchup was the answer! I pureed the peaches (and crushed the ones for jam) last night and then today, when it came time to actually make the ketchup, I was stumped. I dug around in my spice cabinet and came across a new bottle of Chinese five spice powder and went with it. I added some garlic and fresh ginger for extra punch. The result: a sweet-and-sour ketchup that reminds me oddly of a grown up, fresh, homemade version of my secret childhood love, McDonald's Sweet 'N Sour Sauce. I know that might be offputting to some, but trust me, it is fantastic! Now I just need some nuggets.

An aside: I know some canners are purists and eschew things like the Ball Jam and Jelly Maker and want to make everything the same way people have been making jam for thousands of years etc but I am not one of them. I like canning because I like having my own homemade jams, jellies, ketchups, fruit butters, pickles and other preserves on hand; not because I like spending the hottest days of the year trapped in my tiny kitchen in my un-air conditioned house with gallons of boiling water going, stirring molten jam over a hot stove. So when I saw this electric water bath canner, I knew it would be my present to myself when I finished my latest cookbook. I have to say, I loved it. It used less water, was just as quick as the stove top (quicker, actually because the water boiled in a quarter of the time as my old canning pots), it can be used with any canning recipe (and can also serve hot beverages, cook soup, steam fruits and vegetables) and best of all, did not heat up my house at all. It did 8 pints at a time which is the same as my stove top pot and had no problem doing three batches back to back; in fact, it was actually quicker than the stove top because the water returned to boiling so quickly. I'm a total convert. In fact, I think I might can even more now because the prospect is so much less daunting.

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