Name: Tomato Catsup
Ingredients: 1 bushel ripe tomatoes; 2 quarts vinegar; 3 pounds brown sugar; ½ cup coarse sea salt; 4 ounces allspice; ½ ounce cayenne pepper; ¼ ounce black pepper; 2 ounces cloves; a little mace

Why it works: Allspice and clove 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

Boil the ripe tomatoes and strain them through a sieve.
Add vinegar, brown sugar, coarse sea salt, allspice, cayenne pepper, black pepper, cloves, and mace.
Put the spices in a bag.

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.

Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,400 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,189 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes: Provide the main body and flavour base of the ketchup once boiled and strained.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the ketchup.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and depth, balancing the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes.
Allspice: Contributes warm, aromatic spice notes to the sauce.
Cloves: Adds strong aromatic spice notes that carry through the sauce.

Swap the mace

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

Cinnamonfits better
Thymefits better
Cardamomfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, vinegar, sugar, allspice, pepper, 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.