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Sauce

Green Tomato Catsup

A fermented green tomato ketchup made with onions, spices, brown sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Green Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Slice the green tomatoes and onions, and layer them in a bowl, sprinkling salt between each layer.

  2. Let the mixture stand for 24 hours, then drain it.

Cook and bottle

  1. In a preserving pan, combine the drained mixture with mustard seed, allspice, cloves, ground mustard, ground ginger, black pepper, celery seed, and brown sugar.

  2. Cover with vinegar and boil for 2 hours.

  3. Strain through a sieve 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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide the main body and bulk of the ketchup, breaking down during long boiling.
Onions
Add savoury depth and body to the sauce as they soften during cooking.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar and spices.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the ketchup its tang and helps preserve it.
Mustard seed
Contributes a sharp, pungent bite that stands up to long cooking.

The step that matters

Salting and standing the tomato layers. Salt draws water out of the sliced tomatoes and onions through osmosis. Draining afterward removes that liquid, so the ketchup thickens during boiling rather than becoming watery.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, mustard, allspice, clove, ginger, pepper, celery):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, mustard, allspice, clove, ginger, pepper, celery. 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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