Skip to main content
Sauce

Tomato Catsup

A fermented tomato sauce seasoned with red pepper and cloves, boiled and bottled with vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Ice the ripe tomatoes, split them, and let them sit for twenty-four hours.

  2. Mash the tomatoes and run them through a sieve to remove seeds and skin.

Cook and bottle

  1. Season the mixture to taste with red pepper and cloves.

  2. Boil until it begins to settle at the bottom of the kettle.

  3. Add 1 cup of vinegar, then bottle and seal 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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  3. Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Clove + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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, moisture and flavour base of the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the finished ketchup.
Red pepper
Adds heat and a sharp, spicy note that balances the tomato sweetness.
Cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice notes to the seasoning.

The step that matters

Boil until it begins to settle at the bottom of the kettle. Boiling drives off water and concentrates the tomato solids, so the sauce thickens. Stopping too early leaves it thin and watery, while cooking too long can scorch the bottom and dull the flavour.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, 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.

More tomato ketchup recipes

Green 26 See all 523 →

You might also like

Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesCaper SauceCaper Sauce180 recipesBrown SauceBrown Sauce141 recipesDutch SauceDutch Sauce74 recipes