Name: Mexican Catsup
Ingredients: 4 cans tomatoes; ½ teaspoon red pepper; 3 tablespoons salt; 5 tablespoons sugar; 2 tablespoons ground ginger; 3 tablespoons cinnamon; 1 tablespoon mustard; 4 cups vinegar; 5 large onions, chopped fine

Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mexican Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Combine the tomatoes, red pepper, salt, sugar, ground ginger, cinnamon, mustard, and vinegar in a large pot.
Cook the mixture for 10 minutes.
Add the chopped onions and boil until the onions are tender.

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.

Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,380 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,259 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cinnamon + mustardtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,581 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes: Provide the bulk and liquid base that the sauce cooks down from.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that gives the ketchup its tang and helps preserve it.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the acidity and the spices.
Onions: Add savoury body and soften into the sauce as it boils.

Swap the onion

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

Capsicumfits better
Horseradishfits better
Broccolifits better
Onionthe original

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