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Tomato Catsup

A thick tomato condiment made from tomatoes, onions, peppers, sugar, salt, mustard, cinnamon, cloves, and cider vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the ketchup

  1. Boil the tomatoes, onions, and red peppers together until soft enough to pass through a sieve.

  2. Strain the mixture and add sugar, salt, mustard, cinnamon, and cloves.

  3. Cook until thick enough, then add cider vinegar and cook for 5 more minutes.

Seal

  1. Seal while hot.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 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. Mustard + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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
Form the bulk of the ketchup and provide its body and base flavour once cooked down.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the tomatoes and vinegar.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the ketchup its tang and helps preserve it.
Onions
Contribute savoury depth and aroma as they soften during boiling.

The step that matters

Cook until thick enough. Cooking drives off water and concentrates the tomato solids, so the ketchup thickens. Stopping too early leaves it thin and watery, while overcooking makes it dense. Adding the vinegar after thickening keeps its sharp flavour brighter.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, sugar, mustard, cinnamon, clove, cider):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, sugar, mustard, cinnamon, clove, cider. 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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