Grandpa Hermann's ho-made ketchup

[madddawg]

He passed away 20 yrs ago and his ketchup has not been made since that I know of. I can vaguely remember being a kid, 34ish years ago helping pick tomatoes and making this. It was an all day process cooking it down and putting it into empty/clean beer bottles. I just put it in pint mason jars. I was very thankful when I got this recipe from my aunt.

1 gallon of tomato pulp.
2 tbsp salt
1 tbsp allspice
1 tbsp cloves
1/2 tsp red pepper
2 med onions
1 1/2 cups of sugar3/4 cup vinegar
I also add some cumin to it, I cant remember how much I put in tho.

Cook tomatoes day before and put through sieve let stand overnight. keep cool
Skim water off of top with spoon or I use a turkey baster
run onions through a blender to get a onion type of paste.
Cook all ingredients with tomato juice except for sugar and vinegar in non reactive pan. I use stainless pans. add the sugar and vinegar after sauce thickens.

Cooking it down takes a lot of time to get it thick. low to med heat. I Probably need better tomatoes. I usually use the culls from the garden. Some paste type I guess would be best.

Also while cooking it down sometimes I was able to suck some of the water out off of the bottom or sides.
Mine was still kinda runny, not like grandpa's. but still very good.
I don't recommend using tomato paste to thicken it up, ruins the flavor.