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Tomato Catchup

A preserved tomato condiment made with tomatoes, salt, pepper, cinnamon, sugar, cloves, cayenne, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Tomato Catchup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the sauce

  1. Cook the tomatoes until they can be strained through a sieve.

  2. Boil, stirring until thick like apple butter.

  3. Add salt, black pepper, cinnamon, brown sugar, cloves, cayenne, and cider vinegar.

  4. Boil for a few moments to thoroughly season.

Bottle and seal

  1. Bottle while hot and cork tightly.

  2. If desired, cook onions with tomatoes before straining.

  3. Soak corks in hot water for an hour before using, then tie them in.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main bulk, body and fresh tomato flavour of the ketchup.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and rounds out the sharpness of the vinegar.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps keep the ketchup stable.
Cloves
Contribute a warm, aromatic spice note to the sauce.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm aroma and a gentle sweet-spice background.

The step that matters

Boil and stir until thick like apple butter. As water evaporates, sugars and solids concentrate and can scorch on the bottom of the pan. Constant stirring spreads the heat and prevents sticking and burnt flavour.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, cinnamon, sugar, clove, cider, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, cinnamon, sugar, clove, cider, vinegar. 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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