Skip to main content
Main

Better Recipe for Tomato Catsup

A tomato catsup made with spices, vinegar, wine, horseradish, onion, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Gibson, Marietta Fauntleroy Hollyday, "Mrs. C. H. Gibson." · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Better Recipe for Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Gather the tomatoes when quite ripe.

  2. Cut them in thin slices.

  3. Put a thick layer of tomatoes and a layer of salt alternately in a stone jar until full.

Make the ketchup

  1. Boil it gently for half an hour.

  2. Rub it through a hair sieve.

  3. To every gallon add four roots of horseradish scraped, a small onion stuck full of cloves, quarter ounce of mace, quarter ounce cloves, quarter ounce nutmeg, one ounce allspice, two pods red pepper, or one ounce black pepper.

  4. Boil all together.

  5. When done add at the rate of half a pint of vinegar to every gallon of catsup, and one pint of wine to every three quarts.

Bottle and seal

  1. Bottle it as soon as sufficiently cool.

  2. Cork it immediately, keeping it tight.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

66Calories
1 gProtein
2 gFat
8 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 9 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Wine2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)25
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Chili1 tsp (2.7g)8
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Allspice1 tsp ground (1.9g)5
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Macenot in our table0
Horseradishnot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Gibson, Marietta Fauntleroy Hollyday, "Mrs. C. H. Gibson.". 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. See the original page.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Allspice + horseradishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together654 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 (in the method)
Provide the main body, pulp and flavour of the ketchup.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the ketchup its tang and helps preserve it.
Wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the finished ketchup.
Horseradish
Adds a sharp, pungent bite to the sauce.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour.
Black pepper
Adds sharp heat and aroma to the seasoning.

The step that matters

Boil it gently for half an hour. Gentle simmering softens the tomatoes so they can be pushed through a sieve smoothly. Boiling too hard can scorch the pulp and dull its fresh flavour.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, nutmeg, allspice, pepper, wine, vinegar, horseradish):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, nutmeg, allspice, pepper, wine, vinegar, horseradish. 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.

More tomato ketchup recipes

Green 26 See all 523 →

You might also like

Horseradish SauceHorseradish Sauce17 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes