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Tomato Ketchup

A thick tomato ketchup made with ripe tomatoes, spices, vinegar, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 Ketchup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Wash and cut the tomatoes, then boil them without adding water until soft.

  2. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve to remove skins and seeds.

Make the ketchup

  1. For each gallon of tomato pulp, add salt, red pepper, onions in a spice bag, allspice, mustard seed, cloves, celery seed, cinnamon stick, and ginger root.

  2. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently, and boil until it thickens.

  3. Add vinegar and sugar, then continue boiling until thick enough.

  4. Remove the onions and spice bag, then pour into jars and 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. Clove + cinnamontop 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 + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Allspice + mustardtop 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main body and flavour of the ketchup once cooked down into pulp.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the finished ketchup.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes.
Onions
Contribute savoury depth and aroma as they simmer in the spice bag.
Mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent aroma and background heat to the spiced sauce.

The step that matters

Boiling until thick. Tomato pulp thickens only as water evaporates during long simmering, so stopping early leaves a thin ketchup that may not keep well. Stirring frequently prevents scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the onion

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

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

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