Woman shares ‘secret’ Wattie’s tomato sauce recipe from Sir James Wattie

The families were good friends. Bodle-Carswell used to babysit later generations of the Wattie family.

She said her family grew up making and eating the sauce.

Today’s Wattie’s in the bottle with the old recipe in the pot. Photo / Conor Mertens

“That’s all we had. Dad had a huge veggie garden. He had half an acre, and half of it was a vegetable garden, and mum always did preserves and made tomato sauce.”

Violet Edna hated her name, and instead she went by Bunny. She kept an eye on the garden and would sit on a bucket with a gun and shoot rats.

Bodle-Carswell said news of the closures was “damn sad”.

Heinz Wattie’s this week announced plans to shut three New Zealand factories, affecting about 350 jobs.

When she heard the news, she wanted to make sure the recipe lived on.

She logged on to Facebook and asked if anyone wanted the recipe. The post was flooded with likes and comments.

“My mum passed away in 2004 and my sister in 2001, so when I pass on, the recipe will be lost forever. So why not share it out to people that will appreciate it?”

The recipe has changed with the passage of time, with a few “modifications”.

To put the recipe to the test, the Herald shared the recipe with Conor Mertens, head chef of Elephant Hill Restaurant in Hawke’s Bay, for a review.

Mertens gathered the ingredients, bought a bottle of Wattie’s sauce for comparison and cooked a batch using Bodle-Carswell’s recipe.

Mertens halved the recipe and ended up with three litres of sauce. Photo / Conor Mertens

Then he ordered hot chips.

The review?

“It’s good.

“It legit tasted like this could have been the starting point for what became New Zealand’s tomato sauce.

“It doesn’t have the iconic Wattie’s taste.

“It’s less sweet, more spice heavy and honestly, I prefer it.”

“A clear verdict,” said chef Conor Mertens, crowning the 1940s recipe as the winner. Photo / Conor Mertens

Wattie’s ‘Secret’ Tomato Sauce – 1940s recipe

Given to Violet Edna Bodle by Sir James Wattie.

3kg of skinned tomatoes

1kg of cored apples (leave the skin on the apple)

3 cups of white sugar

1kg of chopped onions

1.1L of malt vinegar

4 tablespoons of pickling spice

3 tablespoons of plain salt

4 tablespoons of paprika

Place all ingredients in a large pot and boil for 2 hours (stir now and then to stop catching on the bottom), then put through a blender and pour into sterilised bottles with screw lids.

Conor Mertens said tomato sauce tastes like the beginning of New Zealand’s iconic Wattie’s one. Photo / Conor Mertens

Bodle-Carswell has given some tips for success. She says “never, ever” use iodised salt in preserves because it turns things black. And for less sugar, she uses three tablespoons of sugar replacement, like Sugromax, because diabetes runs in the family.

The easiest way to skin tomatoes is to freeze them and “stick them in water, and the skins just slide right off”.

If you are using fresh tomatoes, she says, you’ll either have to blanch them in boiling water or cut them in half, grate them, and leave the skin aside.