Thursday, October 16, 2008

Curry Ketchup

I had never heard of this until I went to Oktoberfest last week in Leavenworth, Washington. I grew up eating food with a good share of ketchup, and my mom raised me on some of the best Hawaiian-style curry, but a combination of the two? I never placed ketchup on my bowl of curry, but there it was in a cheese store with wines, crackers, and a sample of this curry ketchup. I tried it with a pretzel and I was surprised that I liked it. I bought a bottle ($5.99) and looked forward to having some when I got home. However, lunch was calling so I had a bratwurst and some french fries, and decided to use the Curry Ketchup on the fries. Ono.

When I did get home, I had it with a number of other foods: sandwiches, sausage biscuit, even corned beef hash and in every instance it was great. I'm sure it would be great on/with some grilled chicken.

I haven't discovered how something like curry ketchup became a German specialty, but there are a number of brands from Germany, including one made by Heinz. There is one company in the U.S. that makes them, called Barbkoa, available through Allyson's Kitchen.
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I will have to try that next.

  • Up next: Kecap Manis.
  • 1 comment:

    Barbara Bylaska said...

    Stumbled on your blog while looking up Griff and Willy's. Then your entry on curry ketchup jumped out at me. Since a trip to Germany in 2006 my husband and I have been curry wurst addicts. Sadly we can't really get the same thing here, but we can come close. As you will read, curry wurst is a staple in Germany, but as you can surmise, was once only found in East Germany. It's origin is argued but it is obviously eastern European influenced. It gained great favor in the rest of the country after the Berlin Wall came down. We found many places actually put curry in the sausages, which really made the best curry wurst. Many places make their own curry tomato sauce, but many others rely on pre-made curry ketchup as you have found. I buy my curry ketchup in Leavenowrth at Willis every year and prefer the Zeisner brand you pictured. Read the Wikipedia article I have linked here for you about currywurst and enjoy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currywurst