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Sauce

Barberry Catsup

A sweet and tart condiment made from barberries, cranberries, raisins, quince, onions, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice 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 ↓

Barberry Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Stew barberries with water until well cooked, then strain through a sieve.

  2. In a separate saucepan, stew cranberries, raisins, quince, onions, and water for 30 minutes, then pass through a sieve.

Make the ketchup

  1. Mix the barberry juice with the cranberry mixture.

  2. Add vinegar, salt, brown sugar, cloves, allspice, black pepper, celery seed, cayenne, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg.

  3. Let the mixture boil for one minute. If too thick, add vinegar or water.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Quince + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Barberries
Provide the tart base flavor and much of the body of the ketchup.
Cranberries
Add acidity and pectin that help the ketchup thicken as it cooks.
Quince
Adds natural pectin and a fragrant, tart note that supports setting.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth, and helps balance the sharp fruit acidity.
Vinegar
Adds acidity for sharpness and helps preserve the sauce.

The step that matters

Boiling and adjusting thickness. The ketchup thickens as it reduces and boils, so judging consistency matters. Adding vinegar or water at the end changes both flavor and texture, so add gradually and recheck after boiling.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, quince, vinegar, sugar, clove, allspice, pepper. 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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