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Amish Tomato Ketchup

A homemade tomato ketchup made by boiling tomato juice, vinegar, sugar, spices, and oils for 2½ hours.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and apple cider vinegar work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 217 recipes mention both. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix all ingredients.

  2. Boil for 2 1/2 hours.

  3. Pour into jars.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Tomato + apple cider vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together217 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,027 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together13,144 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Tomato + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,913 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together30,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon share little aroma chemistry, yet 30,777 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Tomato juice
Forms the liquid base and most of the body of the ketchup.
Apple cider vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the sauce its sharp, tangy balance.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity and the tomato flavor.
Ground dry mustard
Adds a sharp, pungent flavor that supports the spices.

The step that matters

Boil for 2 1/2 hours. A long boil drives off water through evaporation, thickening the sauce and concentrating its flavors. Too short a boil leaves it thin and watery, while heat that is too high can scorch the sugar and tomato solids on the bottom of the pot.

Flavor stand-ins for the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  3. Sweet potatoabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, apple cider vinegar, sugar, pepper, clove, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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