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Tomato Catsup

A tomato-based condiment made by boiling tomatoes with spices, vinegar, and onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and chop the tomatoes.

  2. Combine tomatoes with cloves, allspice, cayenne pepper, black pepper, and coarse sea salt.

Cook

  1. Add 1 pint of vinegar for each gallon of mixture.

  2. Tie onions in a bag and add to the mixture.

  3. Boil the mixture until it reduces by half.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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

Tomatoes
Provides the main body, moisture and flavour that the sauce reduces into thick ketchup.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives ketchup its tang and helps preserve it.
Onions
Add savoury depth and aroma to the sauce as it simmers.
Cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice flavour to the sauce.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until it reduces by half. Long simmering evaporates water and concentrates the tomato solids, so the sauce thickens. Stopping too early leaves it thin and watery.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, clove, allspice, 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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