Rose Hip Ketchup

Step 1

There is no need to separate the ends from the rose hips since you’ll be using a fine sieve to strain away all the ends and seeds.

Step 2

Cover 12 cups of rose hips with water and bring to a boil. Turn down to a slow simmer and cook for 30 minutes.

Step 3

While the rose hips are boiling, chop the anaheim pepper (deseed and devein if you want to remove some of the spice), onion, and garlic.

Step 4

Put a fine sieve over a bowl and pour the pot of rose hips into the sieve to separate the liquid from the rose hips. Reserve the liquid as a broth for another recipe (chili maybe?) or use it to thin out the ketchup later.

Step 5

Pour the rose hips into a separate bowl from the fine sieve and place the strainer over another bowl to collect the rose hip puree.

Step 6

A cup at a time, push the rose hips through the fine sieve. Scoop out the rose hip part that remains in the sieve and put it back in the cooking pot you originally cooked them in. Do this for the remaining rose hips. It takes a bit of time to get it pushed through, and I remind myself every year that I’m going to get a food mill, but here I am still doing it the hard way. Taste the puree, so you know what you’re working with - kind of like a tomato paste.

Step 7

Cover the rose hips once again with water and bring to a boil. Simmer for 10 minutes.

Step 8

Strain them once again, as you did in the step above.

Step 9

Heat olive oil and saute onion, garlic, and peppers for 8 minutes.

Step 10

Add in the apple cider vinegar, stir, and then add in the rose hip puree. Stir to blend the ingredients.

Step 11

Add in remaining ingredients and cook at a low simmer for 10 minutes.

Step 12

Using an immersion blender, blend the ingredients in the pot until smooth. You can use a regular blender to do this too. If the pot you cooked the ketchup in is Teflon, transfer to a glass bowl before using the immersion blender. Then, like my chef, buddy said, “Throw out that Teflon pot and get something that doesn’t cause you cancer,” and then he threw my last Teflon pot away.

Step 13

This recipe makes a little under three pints of ketchup, which is a lot to eat before it goes bad sitting in the fridge. I divide the recipe between two ball glasses that I can in a hot water bath for 15 minutes (adjust for altitude - my real-time at 7,000 feet elevation is 30 minutes). The remaining ketchup I put into a salad dressing jar to be used over the next few weeks.