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Tomato Catsup

A preserved tomato sauce made with tomatoes, vinegar, salt, spices, onions, brown sugar, and peach leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the tomatoes, vinegar, salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, cloves, allspice, ground mustard, onions, brown sugar, and peach leaves for three hours, stirring to prevent burning.

  2. When cool, strain the mixture through a sieve.

  3. Bottle and seal the catsup.

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. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 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
Form the bulk of the sauce and provide its main body and flavour.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and aroma that deepen during long cooking.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharp acidity of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that gives ketchup its tang and helps preserve it.
Ground mustard
Adds pungent flavour that complements the tomato and vinegar.

The step that matters

Stirring during the three-hour boil. Tomato mixtures with sugar and onions scorch easily on the bottom of the pot as water evaporates. Frequent stirring prevents burning and keeps the sauce tasting fresh rather than bitter or caramelised.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, clove, allspice, mustard, onion, sugar. 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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