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Apple Ketchup

A sweet and tangy sauce made from stewed apples, onions, vinegar, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Apple Ketchup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Stew the sour apples until soft.

  2. Rub the stewed apples through a sieve.

Make the ketchup

  1. Add the chopped onions, vinegar, sugar, mustard, ground cloves, white pepper, salt, and ground cinnamon.

  2. Simmer until the mixture reaches the right consistency.

Bottle

  1. Bottle the mixture in sterilized jars.

  2. Seal the jars 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. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Mustard + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Sour apples
Provide the bulk and pectin that thicken the sauce as it stews and reduces.
Onions
Add savory body and soft texture that blends into the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the ketchup its tang and helps preserve it.
Sugar
Balances the acidity and sharpness of the vinegar and apples with sweetness.
Ground cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer until the right consistency. Ketchup thickens as water evaporates and the pectin in the apples sets. Stopping too early leaves it thin and watery, while simmering too long makes it stiff and sticky. Checking consistency during cooking prevents both problems.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, onion, vinegar, sugar, mustard, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, onion, vinegar, sugar, mustard, clove, 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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