/ck/ - Food & Cooking

Simple, ketchup is a well balanced condiment.

It touches all five of the basic taste notes: Sweetness from the ripe tomatoes and added sugars, sourness also from the tomatoes and added vinegar, saltiness from salt, bitterness from the other herbs and flavorings and Umami savoriness from the cooked tomatoes. This is why it compliments so many foods and is a secret ingredient in many recipes. It can also serve as a starting point for many tomato based glazes. In certain dishes I might even mix it with plain yogurt or milk to create a creamy, tomato-based sauce or a rose’ bechamel.

Many are guilty of flooding their food in a lake of ketchup. (It could be argued that often that food is pretty lackluster and would only be improved by copious ketchup usage.) But like anything, too much of a good thing can be bad.

Food snobs and your average r*dditor might want to turn their noses up at the thought of ketchup, but when used in the right proportions, ketchup can be great.