I recently blogged a review of Put ‘em Up! Fruit by Sherri Brooks Vinton. It’s an excellent guide to preserving fruits at home and using those treats in your daily cooking. Fruit goes far beyond jams and jellies with ideas to use your fruit wonders right away!
Here’s a perfect example: Blueberry Ketchup. Sherri describes this as not too sweet and tantalizingly fun on a burger. It has much the same ingredient list as conventional ketchup — and tomatoes are a fruit after all — so this recipe is less strange than you are thinking. At the moment.
Beyond burgers, this ketchup is ideal with barbecued chicken, blackened and hot off the grill. The blueberry tones pair lovingly with the meat. Remember Thanksgiving? Turkey? Cranberries? This recipe uses a lot blueberries but fortunately a lot of blueberries are out there.
Blueberry Ketchup
Yield: 3 cups
Ingredients:
- 2 shallots, unpeeled
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 1 quart blueberries [about 1 ½ pounds]
- 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
- ½ cup red wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 teaspoon allspice
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
Preparation:
Preheat the oven to 375°F.
Coat the shallots with oil and bundle in a double thickness of aluminum foil. Place the bundle on a baking sheet and roast in the oven for about 1 hour, until the shallots are tender when pierced with a knife. When they are cool enough to handle, peel and dice them.
Combine the roasted shallots with the remaining ingredients in a large nonreactive pot and slowly bring to a boil, stirring frequently to prevent scorching. Reduce the heat and simmer until thickened, about 30 minutes. Puree with an immersion blender.
To store, you can simply cool, cover and keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks. Or you can uses glass jars employing the classic boiling water method for sterilization.
Source: Put ‘em Up! Fruit by Sherri Brooks Vinton