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Sauce

Catsup

A tomato-based sauce made with spices, sugar, salt, benzoate of soda, and vinegar.

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 ↓

Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Cook tomatoes in a large pot until boiling.

  2. Run the cooked tomatoes through a pulping machine.

Cook the ketchup

  1. In a kettle, combine 100 gallons of tomato pulp with cloves, cinnamon, allspice, mace, cayenne pepper, shallots (or onions), and garlic.

  2. Cook until half done, then add sugar, salt, and benzoate of soda.

  3. Once well cooked down, add vinegar and cook to the desired density.

Finish and bottle

  1. Pass through a sieve or finishing machine.

  2. Bottle.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the body and bulk of the ketchup as the main pulp base.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and, with salt, balances the acidity of the tomatoes and vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the finished sauce.
Shallots or onions
Add savory depth and aromatic sweetness to the sauce.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma and savory flavor to the sauce.
Benzoate of soda
Acts as a preservative that inhibits microbial spoilage in the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Cooking down to the desired density. Tomato pulp thickens as water evaporates, and the sauce keeps thickening after it leaves the heat. Stopping too early leaves it thin, while overcooking can scorch the sugars and give a burnt, sticky taste. Check consistency gradually near the end.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, clove, cinnamon, allspice, pepper, shallot, garlic. 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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