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Tomato Catsup

A preserved tomato sauce made by boiling tomatoes with spices, sugar, and vinegar, then bottling for long-term storage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Rub the tomatoes with a damp cloth and cut out the hearts.

  2. Place the tomatoes in a pot with peach leaves, chopped onions, and water.

  3. Boil until soft, about 2 hours, then strain through a coarse sieve.

Season and cook

  1. Return the liquid to the pot and add vinegar.

  2. Mix in allspice, black pepper, cayenne pepper, mustard, celery seed (if using), ground cloves, nutmeg, brown sugar, and salt.

  3. Boil for another 2 hours.

Bottle and store

  1. Once cool, bottle the catsup, cork, seal, and store in a cool place.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Allspice + peppertop 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

Tomatoes
Form the bulk of the ketchup and provide its body, acidity and base flavor.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and body as they soften during long simmering.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the finished ketchup.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity and spices.
Mustard
Adds pungency and aroma that complement the tomato and spices.

The step that matters

Boil until soft, then strain. Tomatoes must cook fully so the pulp breaks down, otherwise straining leaves coarse pieces and the texture stays thin and uneven.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, peach, onion, vinegar, allspice, pepper, mustard):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, peach, onion, vinegar, allspice, pepper, mustard. 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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