Name: Tomato Catsup
Ingredients: 1 bushel tomatoes, skinned; 2 ounces whole pepper; 2 ounces whole allspice; ½ ounce red pepper; 1 ounce whole cloves; 1 pound brown sugar; ½ pint coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); 1 pint vinegar

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 ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Boil all ingredients together.
Put the mixture through a sieve.
Bottle the catsup.

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.

Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,474 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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, moisture and fruity base of the sauce.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and rounds out the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar: Adds sharp acidity that balances sweetness and helps keep the sauce stable.
Whole allspice: Contributes warm aroma and spiced flavour during boiling.
Whole cloves: Contributes a strong, warm aroma and spiced flavour during boiling.
Whole pepper: Adds pungent aroma and a gentle background heat to the sauce.

Swap the tomato

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

Mustardfits better
Capsicumfits better
Horseradishfits better
Tomatothe original

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