Name: Catsups and Sauces
Ingredients: perfect fruit (tomatoes); coarse sea salt; spices; sugar; vinegar

Why it works: Sugar and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Catsups and Sauces

Ingredients

Directions

Select perfect fruit and cook in porcelain or granite iron-ware.
Sprinkle tomatoes with coarse sea salt and let them stand overnight.
Strain the mixture and add spices and a little sugar.
Bottle in glass or stone, and keep in a cool, dry, dark place.
If mold forms, carefully remove it; the catsup will not be injured.
To prevent molding, do not fill bottles to the top; fill with hot vinegar instead.

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.

Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Tomato + vinegartop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,063 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Tomato + sugartop 33% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,667 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).