Tomato Ketchup Gravy

Ketchup is tomato, sugar, vinegar and salt already balanced against each other, which makes it a genuinely useful shortcut in a gravy. Two tablespoons gives colour, a slight sweetness and a background tomato tang. Nobody will mistake this for a Sunday gravy and that is fine. It is for sausages, faggots, chips, a plate of liver and onions, or a bacon sandwich.

Ingredients

Makes about 450ml, enough for four plates

• 20g butter or beef dripping
• 1 onion chopped fine
• 20g plain flour
• 500ml (18fl oz) hot beef stock
• 2 tbsp tomato ketchup
• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce contains fish and barley, leave out if that matters
• 1 tsp malt vinegar
• salt and plenty of black pepper to taste

Kit

• Saucepan
• Balloon whisk
• Measuring jug

Method

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over a medium heat, add the onion and cook for seven or eight minutes, stirring, until soft and lightly coloured. You do not want it dark, the ketchup is bringing the colour.

2. Stir in the flour and cook it for a minute and a half until it goes the colour of sand and the raw smell has gone.

3. Whisk in a quarter of the hot stock, working the lump smooth, then the rest in two more goes. Bring it to a gentle simmer.

4. Simmer for five minutes, whisking now and then, until it thickens enough to coat a spoon properly.

5. Add the ketchup and whisk it through. The gravy will lighten to a reddish brown straight away and go slightly glossier.

6. Simmer for two minutes more so the ketchup loses its raw jar taste. This step is easy to skip and you can tell when someone has.

7. Take it off the heat, add the Worcestershire sauce and the malt vinegar, then season with salt and a lot of black pepper. Taste. If it is too sweet, more vinegar. If it tastes thin, more pepper before more salt.

Tips worth knowing

• Two tablespoons per 500ml is right for a savoury gravy. Three and it starts to taste like a tin of beans, and the colour goes a strange orange.
• Simmer for a couple of minutes after the ketchup goes in. Straight from the bottle it has a distinct sharp sweetness that needs cooking through.
• This gravy takes a lot more black pepper than you would expect. Pepper is what keeps it on the savoury side of the line.
• Brown sauce and ketchup together, a tablespoon of each, is worth trying if you like a slightly darker and spicier version.

Keeping and reheating

Keeps four days in the fridge and freezes for three months. It thickens hard when cold, so reheat gently with a good splash of water. Taste for vinegar again once it is hot.

Questions people ask