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Tomato Catsup

A tomato-based condiment made with tomatoes, vinegar, spices, mustard seed, garlic or onions, and horseradish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove 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 ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large pot, combine the chopped tomatoes and cider vinegar.

  2. Add the red pepper, black pepper, allspice, cloves, sea salt, mustard seed, garlic or onions, and horseradish.

  3. Boil the mixture slowly for 5 hours.

  4. Strain the mixture through a colander.

  5. Bottle the catsup for storage.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 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

Ripe tomatoes
Form the bulk of the ketchup and supply its main body and tomato flavour as they cook down.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the ketchup its sharp tang and helps preserve it.
White mustard seed
Contributes pungent flavour that rounds out the sharpness of the vinegar and tomatoes.
Garlic or onions
Adds savoury aromatic depth to the sauce as it simmers.
Horseradish
Adds a sharp, pungent heat and aroma that lifts the overall flavour.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture slowly for 5 hours. A long, gentle simmer lets the tomatoes break down and the liquid reduce, concentrating flavour and thickening the sauce. Too fast a boil risks scorching on the bottom of the pot and uneven texture.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, vinegar, pepper, allspice, clove, mustard, garlic):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, pepper, allspice, clove, mustard, garlic. 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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