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Tomato Catsup

A preserved tomato sauce made with tomatoes, vinegar, sugar, and spices, boiled and bottled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Pare the tomatoes and cook until soft enough to press through a sieve to remove seeds and hard parts.

Make the ketchup

  1. Add vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, pepper, and salt to the tomato juice.

  2. Boil the mixture for 2 hours.

Bottle

  1. Once done, bottle the catsup for storage.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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, pulp and flavour of the ketchup once pressed smooth.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the finished ketchup.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity and thickens as the mixture reduces.
Ground cinnamon
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour to the sauce.
Allspice
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour to the sauce.
Cloves
Contributes strong, aromatic spice flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for 2 hours. Long simmering evaporates water and concentrates the tomato pulp, sugar and vinegar, so the sauce thickens and the flavours blend. Too short a boil leaves it thin and watery.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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