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Tomato Catsup

A tomato-based condiment made by boiling tomatoes and onions, then simmering with vinegar, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Skin the tomatoes and slice them.

  2. Peel and slice the onions.

  3. Add the sliced onions to the tomatoes.

  4. Boil the mixture until very soft.

  5. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve to remove the seeds.

Make the ketchup

  1. Return the pulp to the fire.

  2. Boil until it reaches the consistency of thick jam, stirring carefully.

  3. In a separate pot, combine the vinegar, sugar, and spices.

  4. Add this mixture to the tomato pulp.

  5. Let it boil up twice.

Cool and bottle

  1. Cool.

  2. Bottle.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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
Form the bulk of the pulp, providing body, flavour and most of the liquid to reduce.
Onions
Add savoury depth and aromatic sweetness that blends into the tomato base.
Cider vinegar
Provides acidity that brightens the flavour and helps preserve the finished ketchup.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes.
Salt
Seasons the sauce and sharpens the overall flavour.

The step that matters

Boil until thick jam consistency. Stirring carefully matters because thick tomato pulp scorches easily on the bottom of the pan. Reducing it slowly concentrates flavour and thickens the sauce through evaporation.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, clove, cinnamon, cider, vinegar, sugar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, clove, cinnamon, cider, vinegar, sugar. 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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