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Sauce

Tomato Catsup

A tomato-based condiment made by boiling tomatoes with aromatics and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the tomatoes until soft, then strain them through a sieve.

  2. Add shallots, red peppers (or cayenne), ginger, salt, and cloves to the strained tomatoes.

  3. Boil the mixture until it reduces by one-third.

  4. Ten minutes before removing from heat, stir in the vinegar.

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. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 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. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Shallot + gingertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together565 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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, moisture, and flavour that the sauce reduces into a thick base.
Shallots
Add savoury depth and aromatic sweetness to the sauce.
Red peppers
Add heat and a pungent, sharp edge to the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps preserve the sauce.

The step that matters

Reducing the mixture by one-third. Boiling drives off water until the sauce thickens; if it is under-reduced it stays thin, and if over-reduced it can scorch on the bottom of the pan as the sugars concentrate. Stirring keeps it from sticking.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, pepper, ginger, clove, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, pepper, ginger, clove, vinegar. 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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