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Tomato Catsup

A tomato-based condiment made by boiling tomatoes with spices, vinegar, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

Prepare the tomato juice

  1. Boil ripe tomatoes until soft.

  2. Strain the tomatoes through a fine sieve to extract the juice.

Make the ketchup

  1. In a large pot, combine one gallon of tomato juice with salt, black pepper, mustard, allspice, cloves, red pepper, vinegar, and sugar.

  2. Boil the mixture for one hour.

  3. Continue boiling until the catsup is done.

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. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  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

Ripe tomatoes
Provide the main body, flavour and liquid base of the ketchup.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the ketchup.
Salt
Seasons the ketchup and brings out the flavour of the tomatoes.

The step that matters

Continue boiling until the catsup is done. Long simmering evaporates water and thickens the tomato juice, so the ketchup sets to the right consistency. Stopping too early leaves it thin and watery.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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