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Catsup, Sharp

A sharp tomato ketchup made with ripe tomatoes, spices, sugar, salt, mustard, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Catsup, Sharp

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spices

  1. Place whole spices in a cloth bag and boil in water for about 1.5 hours.

Season and finish

  1. Add sugar, salt, ground mustard, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, black pepper, red pepper, and vinegar 30 minutes before bottling.

  2. Make a batter with the ground spices and vinegar.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the bulk and body of the ketchup.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp, acidic flavors.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the ketchup its sharp tang.
Ground mustard
Adds pungent, sharp flavor that complements the tomatoes.

The step that matters

Adding the vinegar and seasonings 30 minutes before bottling. Vinegar's sharp aroma and flavor are volatile and fade with prolonged boiling, so adding it late keeps the tang bright. Spice flavors need time to infuse, so the timing balances both qualities.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, allspice, cinnamon, ginger, sugar, mustard, clove):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, allspice, cinnamon, ginger, sugar, mustard, clove. 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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