Skip to main content
Main

Tomato Catsup

A thick tomato sauce made by boiling tomatoes, shallots, peppers, ginger, salt, cloves, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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.

  2. Rub the tomatoes through a sieve.

  3. Add shallots, red peppers (or cayenne), ginger, salt, and cloves.

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

  5. Ten minutes before removing from heat, add 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
Form the bulk of the ketchup and provide its main body and flavour once reduced.
Shallots
Add savoury depth and aromatic flavour to the tomato base.
Red peppers
Contribute heat and a sharper, peppery bite to the ketchup.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the ketchup.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until it reduces by one-third. Reducing concentrates the tomato solids and flavour and thickens the sauce. Stopping too early leaves it thin, while overcooking makes it dense and sticky.

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.

More tomato ketchup recipes

Green 26 See all 523 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesCream Tomato SoupCream Tomato Soup28 recipes