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Sauce

Tomato Catsup

A tomato-based condiment made by simmering tomatoes with vinegar, spices, sugar, and peach leaves, then straining and bottling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice 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

Prepare

  1. Wash and chop the tomatoes.

Make the ketchup

  1. In a large pot, combine the tomatoes, vinegar, salt, black pepper, cayenne, cloves, allspice, mustard, onions, brown sugar, and peach leaves.

  2. Boil the mixture for 3 hours.

  3. Allow to cool, then strain through a fine sieve.

  4. Bottle the strained 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.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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, flavor and bulk of the ketchup.
White wine vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the ketchup.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth, balancing the acidity and spice.
Onions
Contribute savory flavor and aromatic background notes.
Mustard
Adds pungency and sharpness that rounds out the spice blend.

The step that matters

Boiling the mixture for 3 hours. Long simmering reduces the water in the tomatoes and concentrates their flavor and body. Too little cooking leaves the ketchup thin and raw-tasting, while the sugar and acid need time to blend with the spices.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, vinegar, pepper, clove, allspice, mustard, onion):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, vinegar, pepper, clove, allspice, mustard, onion. 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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