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John Mack Tomato Catsup

A preserved tomato sauce made with vinegar, spices, and onions, boiled and strained, then bottled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

John Mack Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Wash and mash the desired quantity of tomatoes.

  2. Put the mashed tomatoes into a preserving kettle and boil for one hour.

  3. Strain the mixture through a sifter.

Make the ketchup

  1. Add the vinegar, spices, and other ingredients to 4 quarts of the liquid.

  2. Boil the mixture down to half, stirring to prevent burning.

  3. Strain off the spices through a sifter.

Bottle and seal

  1. Bottle the catsup in brown beer bottles if possible.

  2. Cork the bottles with new corks that have been soaked in hot water to soften them.

  3. Seal the tops with sealing wax.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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 liquid and supply the body and main tomato flavor.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that gives the ketchup its tang and helps preserve it.
White onions
Add savory aroma and mild sweetness that round out the tomato flavor.
Lemons
Add bright acidity that balances the sweetness of the tomatoes.

The step that matters

Boiling the mixture down to half while stirring. As water evaporates, the sugars and solids concentrate and thicken the ketchup. Near the bottom of the pan they can scorch quickly, which gives a burnt taste, so constant stirring keeps the base from sticking and burning.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, clove, cinnamon, mustard, lemon, pepper, allspice. 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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