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Sauce

Canning- Vegetables and Meats

A preserved tomato sauce made from tomatoes, onions, peppers, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, mustard, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Chapel, Inie Gage, Mrs. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 9,259 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Canning- Vegetables and Meats

Ingredients

Directions

Cook

  1. Cut ripe tomatoes finely and boil for 2 hours, stirring often to prevent burning.

  2. Slice three quarts onions.

  3. Slice three red peppers.

  4. Stir and boil all together for half an hour.

Strain and bottle

  1. Strain the mixture.

  2. Pour into clean, sterilized bottles and seal as above.

By Chapel, Inie Gage, Mrs. [from old catalog]. 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,259 recipes

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

  2. Cinnamon + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together20,633 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the bulk of the ketchup and supply its main body and flavor as they cook down.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the finished ketchup a deep color and thick body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the finished ketchup.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and body as they soften during the long simmer.

The step that matters

Stirring during the 2-hour boil. As the tomatoes cook down, their sugars and solids thicken and settle, and they scorch easily on the bottom of the pan. Frequent stirring keeps the mixture from burning, which would add a bitter, burnt taste.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Horseradishbetter flavor fit
  3. Cucumberbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, mustard, vinegar, tomato, pepper. 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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