Name: Catsups and Sauces
Ingredients: perfect fruit (tomatoes); coarse sea salt; spices; sugar; hot 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 tomatoes and cook them in a porcelain pot.
Sprinkle the tomatoes with coarse sea salt and let them stand overnight.
Strain the tomatoes and add spices and a little sugar.
Bottle the mixture in glass or stone containers, avoiding tin cans.
To prevent molding, do not fill the bottles completely; top with hot vinegar.
If mold appears, carefully remove it; if there are white specks throughout, discard 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.

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).