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Sauce

Gooseberry Catsup

A sweet and tart sauce made from gooseberries, sugar, vinegar, and spices.

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

Gooseberry Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Remove the blossoms from the gooseberries and wash them.

  2. Mash the gooseberries in a porcelain kettle.

  3. Scald the mashed gooseberries and strain them through a colander.

Make the ketchup

  1. Add sugar and spices to the strained mixture and boil for 15 minutes.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in the cold vinegar.

  3. Bottle the catsup immediately before it cools.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Vinegar + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

Gooseberries
Provide the main fruit body and pectin-rich pulp that thickens the ketchup as it cooks.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps thicken the mixture while balancing the vinegar's acidity.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the ketchup its tang and helps preserve it.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm aroma and flavor to the spiced ketchup.
Allspice
Contributes warm, aromatic flavor to the spiced ketchup.
Cloves
Contributes strong, warm aroma and flavor to the spiced ketchup.

The step that matters

Stir in the cold vinegar after removing from heat. Vinegar's acidity is most effective and its sharp flavor best preserved when added off the heat, since prolonged boiling dulls its aroma and can drive off its tang. Cooling it also helps keep the fruit's fresh flavor intact.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Clovethe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Cardamomfits less well

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