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Tomato Ketchup

A preserved tomato ketchup made with tomatoes, garlic, vinegar, spices, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Jacqueline Harrison Smith (ed.) · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,076 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Tomato Ketchup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Take 1 bushel tomatoes, boil until soft and squeeze through a fine wire sieve.

  2. Add 1½ pints salt, 2 oz. whole cloves, ¼ oz. whole allspice, ¼ oz. cayenne pepper, 1½ oz. whole black pepper, 5 heads garlic, 1 oz. celery seed, ¼ oz. good yellow mustard, ½ gallon vinegar.

  3. Boil until reduced to one half, and bottle when cold.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

29Calories
1 gProtein
0 gFat
6 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Tomato1 medium (123g)22
Garlic1 clove (3g)4
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3

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

By Jacqueline Harrison Smith (ed.). Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Garlic + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Garlic + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Vinegar + tomatotop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,063 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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 provide its body, sweetness and acidity.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the finished ketchup.
Garlic
Contributes pungent aroma and savoury depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil until reduced to one half. Long boiling evaporates water and concentrates the tomato solids, giving ketchup its thick body and intense flavour. Stopping too early leaves it thin and watery, while overcooking can scorch the sugars and dull the taste.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (garlic, vinegar):

  1. Onionfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against garlic, vinegar. 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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