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Tomato Catsup

A tomato-based condiment made with tomatoes, pepper, salt, allspice, cloves, mustard, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Prepare

  1. Wash and slice the tomatoes.

  2. For every gallon of tomatoes, mix in 4 tablespoons of ground pepper, 6 tablespoons of coarse sea salt, 1 tablespoon of allspice, 1 tablespoon of cloves, and 8 tablespoons of mustard.

  3. Add 1 pint of vinegar and mix well.

Cook and finish

  1. Boil the mixture slowly for 4 hours in a tin vessel.

  2. Strain through a coarse sieve.

  3. Put the catsup in bottles, cork, and seal.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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
Provide the main body, moisture and flavor that the ketchup is built on.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the finished ketchup.
Mustard
Adds pungent flavor that balances the sweetness of the cooked tomatoes.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the sauce and draws moisture out of the tomatoes during cooking.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture slowly for 4 hours. Long, gentle simmering evaporates water and concentrates the tomatoes into a thick sauce. Boiling too hard can scorch the bottom and burn the flavor.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, allspice, clove, mustard, 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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