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Tomato Catsup. No. 1

A thick tomato sauce made by boiling tomato pulp with onion, salt, sugar, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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. No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

Make the ketchup

  1. Boil tomato pulp with onion, salt, and brown sugar until thick.

  2. Strain through a sieve and work it until seeds are removed.

  3. Return to the stove and add mustard, allspice, black pepper, cinnamon, ground cloves, cayenne pepper, nutmeg, and vinegar.

  4. Boil until it runs from the mouth of a bottle, stirring often to prevent burning.

Bottle

  1. Seal in large-mouthed bottles while hot for long-term storage.

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomato pulp
Provides the main body, flavor, and liquid that reduces into the thick ketchup.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the finished ketchup.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity and tomato flavor.
Onion
Adds savory depth and aroma as it cooks down into the tomato base.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that rounds out the spice blend.

The step that matters

Boil until it runs from the mouth of a bottle. Ketchup thickens as water evaporates and sugars concentrate. Stopping too early leaves it thin and watery, while cooking too long risks scorching the sugars on the bottom of the pan, so stir often.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

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