Curry Ketchup recipe!

Marlies WobbenAt Home2 Comments

Curry ketchup is my favourite condiment! Esp. the brand Hela. A German brand, but also very popular in the Netherlands. Just after we moved to Canada, I had family bring it for us, and we have bought it in Dutch stores in other cities in Canada. But pretty soon after, I tried out recipes to make our own snacks and came across this curry ketchup recipe on a dutch website. We dropped the frikandel recipe from that site (and ended up with this one), but kept the condiment recipe. It hit the spot as we like to say and I have never looked back!

Endless uses for curry ketchup

enjoying a currywurst at the Christmas Market at the CentrO in Oberhausen
Eating currywurst in Germany

In Germany, a thinner and warm version of curry ketchup is mainly used for currywurst, a pork sausage cut up with the sauce and some curry powder sprinkled on top. In the Netherlands we use the condiment for fries and snacks like frikandellen like in the recipe we posted last week. If we use the combination of mayo, curry ketchup and cut up raw onions, we call it “speciaal”.

As this is my absolute favourite condiment, I also love to use this on many other dinner ingredients as well as breakfast items instead of regular ketchup. I find ketchup a bit too vinegary, so a spicy and sweeter variety is right up my alley! Another favourite use is on sandwiches… with cheese with curry as my number one hands down!

Sweet and spicy, but not really hot

I realize that factory made curry ketchup probably starts with some basic tomato ingredient and not half ketchup and half water, but this recipe was so spot on for us, that hardly tinkered with it!! Except lower the amount of sugar a bit. It is a tad spicier than the store-bought variety. Not so much in heat, but more in flavour like from the black pepper and curry powder. For that, we like this sauce even more than the original these days! A while back we found small bottles of Hela curry ketchup at one of our Superstores, but it was an export version… even less spices 🙁 No thank you, I’ll just keep making this easy recipe!

Ingredients

  • 500 ml or 2 cups tomato ketchup
  • 500 ml or 2 cups water
  • 3/4 cups sugar
  • 1/4 cup ketjap manis (sweet soy sauce)
  • 4 tsp curry powder
  • 2 tsp paprika
  • 2 tsp black pepper
  • 1/4 tsp ground clove
  • 2 tbsp cornstarch (to thicken)

Notes:

– use a good quality tomato ketchup
– it’s pretty sweet, I usually use only 1/2 cup sugar
– the ketjap manis I use (typically a key ingredient for Indonesian recipes) is thick and syrupy (brand available in Asian stores here in Canada is ABC). If you only have regular soy sauce you can add 1/4 cup brown sugar or just leave it out if you want to cut some sugar in the recipe anyway
– I make double batches and have rounded the spice amounts for easy measuring to 3 tbsp curry powder, 1 tbsp paprika and 1 tbsp black pepper

Preparation

Add everything except the cornstarch to a pot, stir and bring to a gentle boil. Thicken with cornstarch (dissolved in some cold water first). Store in containers or bottles. I keep it in the fridge and it stays good for very long, it just may separate a bit and need a shake every now and then.

deepfried frikandellen with curry ketchup and mayo
serving curry and mayo with the frikandellen

This recipe is known (and being quoted online) as the recipe of a certain “expat Case Florida”, but there does not seem to be an original posting online anymore.

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2 Comments on “Curry Ketchup recipe!”

    1. Hi! I just buy regular curry powder from any grocery store, usually the bags for refilling that are cheaper than the small containers.

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