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Raw Tomato Catchup

A raw tomato ketchup made with tomatoes, horseradish, mustard seeds, spices, sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Raw Tomato Catchup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine the chopped tomatoes, grated horseradish, salt, mustard seeds, black pepper, chopped red peppers, chopped celery, and chopped onions in a large bowl.

  2. Add the powdered cloves, mace, cinnamon, brown sugar, and vinegar to the mixture, then mix well.

Serve

  1. Use immediately.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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 supply the base flavour and body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the sauce.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and horseradish.
Onions
Add savoury depth and aromatic sweetness to the base.
Mustard seed
Contributes pungency and a sharp, slightly bitter bite.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, horseradish, mustard, pepper, celery, onion, clove):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, horseradish, mustard, pepper, celery, onion, clove. 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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