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Tomato Catsup

A tomato sauce made with vinegar, sugar, spices, and onions, boiled for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Wipe the tomatoes with a damp cloth and cut out the cores.

  2. Place the tomatoes in a porcelain-lined kettle and add 8 pints of water and the finely chopped onions.

  3. Boil until the tomatoes are done, about 2 hours.

  4. Strain the mixture through a coarse sieve and return the liquid to the kettle.

Season and simmer

  1. Add vinegar, spices, pepper, mustard seed, cloves, nutmeg, sugar, and salt to the liquid.

  2. Boil for 2 hours, stirring constantly to prevent burning.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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
Provide the main body and flavour base of the ketchup as they break down.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the finished ketchup.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth that balances the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes.
Onions
Contribute savoury flavour and body to the simmered base.
Ground mustard seed
Adds pungent, aromatic flavour that rounds out the spice blend.

The step that matters

Stirring during the final boil. The mixture is thick and sugary, so it can scorch on the bottom of the kettle during the long simmer. Constant stirring spreads the heat and prevents burnt flavour.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, onion, clove, sugar, pepper, mustard, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, onion, clove, sugar, pepper, mustard, nutmeg. 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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