Skip to main content
Drink

Grape Catsup

A sweet and spicy grape condiment made by boiling grapes with sugar, vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Grape Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pulp

  1. Squeeze the pulps from the grapes and cover with vinegar.

  2. Boil the pulps and vinegar, then strain to remove the seeds.

Cook the ketchup

  1. Add the brown sugar and grape skins, along with cinnamon, all-spice, and cloves.

  2. Boil until the skins are tender.

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. Grape + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,164 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Grape + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Grape + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,589 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Grapes
Provide the fruity base and body of the ketchup.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and deeper, caramel-like flavor as it cooks.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the ketchup its tangy bite.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma.
All-spice
Adds warm, peppery aroma.
Cloves
Adds strong, pungent aroma in small amounts.

The step that matters

Boil until the skins are tender. Grape skins must soften fully during boiling. Skins that stay tough leave a chewy, grainy texture in the finished ketchup, so cook until they are soft.

Swap the grape

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Quincefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, 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.

You might also like

Raspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesSugar VinegarSugar Vinegar20 recipesGrape FrappeGrape Frappe10 recipesCinnamon TinctureCinnamon Tincture10 recipes