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Sauce

Tomato Catsup

A tomato-based sauce made by simmering tomatoes, onions, mace, and pepper, then straining and reducing to fill bottles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Pick out the stems from the tomatoes and wash them.

  2. Place the tomatoes in a pot over medium heat without adding water.

  3. Sprinkle a few spoons of salt over the tomatoes and let them boil steadily for 1 hour, stirring frequently.

  4. Strain the mixture through a colander, then through a sieve.

Reduce and bottle

  1. Return the liquid to the pot and add the chopped onions, mace, and black pepper.

  2. Boil until the mixture is reduced enough to fill two bottles.

  3. Cork the bottles tightly.

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

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

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

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Onion + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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, flavour and liquid that reduces into the ketchup.
Onions
Add savoury depth and aromatic sweetness as they cook down into the sauce.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the ketchup.
Black pepper
Adds mild heat and a sharp, aromatic note to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil until reduced enough to fill two bottles. Tomatoes are mostly water, so the sauce must simmer long enough for water to evaporate and concentrate its flavour and body. Stopping early leaves a thin ketchup that may spoil sooner once bottled.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, pepper. 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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