Friday, October 19, 2012

Autumn Olive Recipe - Autumn Olive Ketchup


Autumn olives (Elaeagnus umbellata) are an abundant, invasive berry here in the Northeast. It turns out they are highly nutritious, containing lots of lycopene, which is a strong antioxidant good for joint health, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer treatment. Lycopene is a phytochemical, and it is in the red pigment of many foods like tomatoes, watermelons, and pink grapefruits. Autumn olives contain fantastic amounts of lycopene, some studies stating 17 times the amount of raw tomatoes. Here is a quick read from the USDA and Utah State University on their lycopene findings.

We use the ripe berries of the autumn olive bush in many recipes like jelly and dressing, they make great fruit leather and wine, and the ripe berries freeze well. The berries are tart and astringent straight from the bush, but the flavor improves with the advancing of the autumn season and with a frost. While we had a rather poor harvest in 2012 probably due to a dry summer, we did manage to find enough to experiment with. We have a recipe for ketchup using the red pulp of the autumn olive berries. I don't add any preservatives, so this is a small batch that should be kept in the refrigerator for a few weeks.


This recipe is available in our book, due Spring 2016.

http://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/book/?GCOI=60239108626260&






 




24 comments:

noodle restaurant Brisbane said...

It seems interesting recipe. Thanks for share.

Enlightenment said...

nice food pics

Sandra said...

This is my first year harvesting autumn olive fruit and I wondered if it was a bad year. It's been hard to find trees with a decent amount of fruit, and some were more sour and astringent than others. Your comments on the 2012 harvest were helpful, and the recipe sounds interesting to try. Thank you for posting.

Unknown said...

Hi, I am so impressed by this post.it is very informative.
thanks.
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Unknown said...

I got a new recipe to learn, I would definitely tell it to my wife..I know she can make me yummy with her hands ")

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Unknown said...

This looks beautiful. A great alternative for those allergic to tomatoes I would guess. Would it be appropriate for those allergic to night shade plants?

JacLynn said...

Wow, thanks for a great new recipe! I love your site.

Helen said...

Thanks for sharing awesome receipe.. I have to hop into online food shopping now.. Thanks again..

Unknown said...

Your recipe looks great and looks like it contains all the important nutrients for a healthy body. Thanks for sharing this post!

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amit said...

Thanks for sharing this recipe. Every day I try to make Healthy Organic Food recipes to keep my family fit and fine. I genially prefer natural foods in the diet.

Anonymous said...

Thanks dear for sharing your recipe. It seems really nice.
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Anonymous said...

This is a nice recipe. My mother and I have about 10 of these bushes in our yard which are just filled with these berries, so we picked a whole bowl full! And we just couldn't figure out what to do with them.

DNDV2875 said...

Thanks much for taking the time to post this recipe. I started exploring what I might make with these berries since I have several small trees/large bushes. My motivation increased when I read they are extremely high in anti-oxidants. Before reading your recipe, I made some jelly, some lacto-fermented tonic and a little wine. It’s all been good, the berries are like a hidden jewel. However, I feel obligated to report that this ketchup is excellent, very good, and has opened my eyes to, probably the best potential for these berries – sauces and cooking.

Anonymous said...

This ketchup came out amazingly well!!! Now to find more berries so I can make more of it! Also made jam and fruit leather with them. This was my first time playing with these berries...food mill worked great.

Anonymous said...

I hate you people living in good climates. I had to actually buy the autumn olive bush. It survived covered the first 2 winters only to snow borde- good thing we had up to 90 cm snow. Bloomed, but never bore fruit. Then on third winter i got lazy and skipped the special winter coth covering. So much for the vigor and invasiveness of this plant...

puleom said...

Absolutely delicious, with the perfect amount of zing from the berries and vinegar, thanks for sharing!

DNDV2875 said...

Thanks. I followed this last year. We like it better than tomato-based, it's excellent. Am going to make very large batch and try to preserve in jars this year.

Would love to hear suggestions for efficient harvesting. I'd like to use these for wine too. Harvesting large amounts is really time consuming.

The 3 Foragers said...

Each harvest year is different. Last year was awful for autumn olives, while this year looks fantastic. We let the berries ripen until they are quite plump and heavy, then spread a tarp under a tree with good-tasting berries. Then we give some of the branches a vigorous shake, and many of the berries just fall right off on to the tarp, then we gather up the tarp and pour them into a 5 gallon bucket. You'll have to pick out some twigs, leaves, and spiders, but it takes all of 10 minutes to get 5 gallons of berries.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for posting this!!! Just made our first batch! It's very tasty!! What would you do to preserve it? Could hot water processing in canning jars be enough?
thanks again

The 3 Foragers said...

I really don't know if the acid content is high enough to preserve the ketchup with canning. We make it fresh all year from autumn olives we have frozen, and keep the ketchup in the fridge for about a month at a time.

The 3 Foragers said...

I really don't know if the acid content is high enough to preserve the ketchup with canning. We make it fresh all year from autumn olives we have frozen, and keep the ketchup in the fridge for about a month at a time.

The 3 Foragers said...

I really don't know if the acid content is high enough to preserve the ketchup with canning. We make it fresh all year from autumn olives we have frozen, and keep the ketchup in the fridge for about a month at a time.

Unknown said...

thank you for the recipe. I made autumn olive ketchup over the weekend and it turned out great. I skipped using the blender. It seems like an unnecessary step that creates more dishes to clean. It took several hours of cook time to reduce the ketchup to a thicker consistency, 3-4 actually. I canned about 7 small jars to enjoy and share for later.

Unknown said...

Just picked my first round of Autumn Olives for this year. Last year we made 24 jars of ketchup!! so very very good!!! we may try the jam/jelly this year....AFTER I get my fair share of Ketchup done! thanks again for sharing the recipe and all the great info!!!!
Linda in Connecticut..