Skip to main content

Tomato Catsup

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Wash the tomatoes and cut them into slices.

  2. Layer the tomatoes and salt in a clean stone jar until nearly full.

  3. Set the jar in the sun daily for a week, bringing it in at night.

  4. If it's cloudy after a week, transfer the mixture to a clean bell metal kettle.

  5. Heat the mixture well, then strain it through a sieve, allowing some pulp to pass through but not the seeds or skins.

  6. Boil the strained mixture for two hours with whole black pepper and cloves.

  7. Optionally, add mustard seed, cayenne pepper, mace, nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, and ginger.

  8. Once cooled, bottle the catsup, cork tightly, and seal the tops with resin.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

Swap the mustard

The recipe marks mustard as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, clove, mace, nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, clove, mace, nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

More tomato ketchup recipes

Green 26 See all 523 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesCream Tomato SoupCream Tomato Soup28 recipes