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Sauce

Currant Catsup, No. 2

A sweet and spicy currant sauce made with sugar, vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Currant Catsup, No. 2

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mash the currants in a large pot.

  2. Add sugar, vinegar, salt, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice.

Cook and bottle

  1. Boil the mixture for one hour, stirring occasionally.

  2. Let cool before bottling.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 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

Currants
Provide the main fruit body and natural pectin that thickens the ketchup as it cooks.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps thicken the mixture while balancing the tartness of the currants.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the finished ketchup.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm, sweet aroma that defines the spiced character of the ketchup.
Cloves
Adds a pungent, warm aroma that supports the spiced flavor profile.
Allspice
Adds a blended warm aroma that rounds out the spices in the ketchup.

The step that matters

Boil for one hour, stirring occasionally. A long simmer lets the currant pectin and sugar thicken the mixture and concentrates flavor. Stirring prevents scorching on the bottom of the pot, which would taste burnt.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, pepper, cinnamon, clove, allspice. 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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