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Crab Apple Catsup

A sweet and tangy condiment made from crab apples, sugar, vinegar, cloves, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Crab Apple Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and core the crab apples.

  2. Combine crab apples and sugar in a pot.

Cook and strain

  1. Boil until thick, stirring occasionally.

  2. Add vinegar, ground cloves, black pepper, and salt.

  3. Continue to boil for a few more minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve or cheesecloth.

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 + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Crab + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together922 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Crab apples
Provide the fruit pulp and pectin that thicken the ketchup as it boils.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps thicken the mixture as it cooks down.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and gives the ketchup its tang.

The step that matters

Boil until thick. Cooking down the fruit and sugar concentrates the mixture and lets pectin set it. Stop too early and the ketchup stays runny; cook too long and it can scorch on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Plumfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

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