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Sauce

Gooseberry Catsup

A sweet and spicy sauce made from boiled gooseberries, sugar, vinegar and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Gooseberry Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Gather gooseberries just before ripening.

Make the ketchup

  1. Boil the gooseberries in vinegar until reduced to a pulp.

  2. Add sugar and the ground spices to the pulp.

  3. Stir well and continue to cook until thickened.

  4. Strain the mixture and bottle for use.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Gooseberries
Provide the fruit base and pectin that breaks down into a thick pulp.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps thicken the mixture as it cooks down.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and preserves the ketchup.

The step that matters

Continue cooking until thickened. Gooseberries and sugar need sustained cooking to reduce water and concentrate the pulp. Stopping too early leaves a thin sauce that may spoil sooner in storage.

“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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