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Sauce

Tomato Catsup

A tomato-based condiment made by boiling tomatoes with spices, salt, and brandy, then bottling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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

Cook the tomatoes

  1. Boil the tomatoes until soft enough to press through a sieve.

  2. Add cayenne pepper, allspice, cloves, and coarse sea salt.

  3. Boil for three hours to reduce the quantity by half.

Finish and bottle

  1. When cool, add the brandy.

  2. Bottle and cork tightly.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Clove + tomatotop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body and pulp, which thickens into the sauce as it reduces.
Cayenne pepper
Adds sharp heat that balances the sweetness of the tomatoes.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the sauce.
Cloves
Adds a strong, warm aroma and deep spice flavour.
Brandy
Adds a rich aroma and flavour that is kept by adding it after cooking.

The step that matters

Boil for three hours to reduce by half. As water evaporates during long boiling, the sauce thickens and its flavours concentrate. Stopping early leaves it thin, while boiling too hard can scorch the bottom and taste bitter.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, allspice, clove, brandy. 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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