Rhubarb ketchup

This morning I was weeding in the garden and realised that our rhubarb plant is massive again and needed a fair bit pulling out at it was swamping the beetroot in the same bed.

I'm not a great rhubarb fan, Mike loves it, but there was a significant amount, I'd say at least 4lbs of the stuff, so I've chopped up some of the pinker, smaller stuff and stuck it in a casserole in the microwave for 5 mins for him, and then I browsed my cook books for a rhubarb chutney, I made rhubarb and ginger jelly earlier in the year, it's a pain to get a good set, and it's not a big seller either, so didn't want to go down that route. 

I found a recipe in the river cottage cookbook for a variation on roasted tomato ketchup, which said to use rhubarb instead, I've as usual, upped a few ingredients and amended the recipe as it was much too thick, either that or my rhubarb didn't yield as much juice...although I did leave it in the oven longer than suggested - due to getting sidetracked with other things.

So...this is my version slow roast 2kg of chopped rhubarb along with 4 chopped large red onions and a handful of garlic cloves ( 6?) at about 180/gas 4 for about an hour ( I left it in at 160 for 2 hrs)

Now it says to sieve the mixture, which turned out to be a right pain in the behind, as did attempting to use the mouli, so in the end I stuck it all in the blender, ( in 3 batches).

Using a heavy bottomed pan ( with a lid) bring to a simmer and simmer for 25 mins, adding along the way 250ml cider vinegar ( the recipe said 100ml, but that just wasn't enough) 100g dark brown sugar and the spices, -a teaspoon each of ground ginger, celery salt, ground cumin and ground coriander.

Bottle up and seal with vinegar proof lids. Easy peasy! Tastes delicious.