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Tomato Catsup

A fermented tomato sauce seasoned with salt, allspice, mustard, and red pepper, simmered in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,928 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Grind the tomatoes, salt, allspice, mustard, and red pepper finely.

  2. Simmer the mixture slowly in strong vinegar for 3 to 4 hours.

  3. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

  4. Bottle the catsup, ensuring there is ½ gallon of liquid after straining.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Strained tomatoes
Provide the main body, moisture and tomato flavor of the sauce.
Salt
Seasons the sauce and helps draw out flavor from the tomatoes.
Strong vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the ketchup its tang and helps keep it stable.
Red pepper
Adds heat and a sharp, pungent note to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly for 3 to 4 hours. Long, gentle simmering evaporates water and concentrates the tomatoes into a thick sauce. Too fast a boil can scorch the sugars and solids on the bottom of the pan, giving a burnt taste.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (allspice, mustard, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against allspice, mustard, pepper, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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