Name: Gooseberry Catsup
Ingredients: 10 pounds gooseberries (just before ripe); 5 pounds sugar; 1 quart vinegar; 2 tablespoons ground black pepper; 2 tablespoons ground allspice; 2 tablespoons ground cloves; 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Gooseberry Catsup

Ingredients

10 pounds gooseberries (just before ripe)
5 pounds sugar
1 quart vinegar
2 tablespoons ground black pepper
2 tablespoons ground allspice
2 tablespoons ground cloves
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

Directions

Make the ketchup

Boil the gooseberries in the vinegar until reduced to a pulp.
Add the sugar and spices to the pulp and stir well until the sugar is dissolved.

Bottle and store

Let cool, then store in bottles.
Seal tightly.

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.

Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,536 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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

Gooseberries: Provide the fruit base and pectin that thickens the ketchup as it reduces to a pulp.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps preserve the ketchup by binding water.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that extracts the fruit and helps preserve the ketchup.
Ground cloves: Add warm, aromatic spice flavour to the ketchup.
Ground cinnamon: Adds warm, sweet aromatic flavour to the ketchup.
Ground allspice: Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the ketchup.

“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.