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Tomato Catsup

A thick tomato sauce made from strained tomatoes seasoned with salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, mustard seed, allspice, and sharp cider vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,928 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the tomato mixture

  1. In a large pot, combine the strained tomatoes, salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, mustard seed, and allspice.

  2. Boil the mixture for 3 hours.

  3. After 1 hour of boiling, strain off the spices through a sieve.

Finish and bottle

  1. Once done, add the sharp cider vinegar and mix well.

  2. Bottle the catsup securely.

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

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

  5. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 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

Strained tomatoes
Form the bulk of the ketchup and provide its body, moisture, and sweetness as they cook down.
Sharp cider vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the ketchup its tang and helps keep it stable.
Mustard seed
Contributes a sharp, pungent flavor that rounds out the tomato base.
Cayenne pepper
Adds heat that gives the ketchup its sharp, spicy kick.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes that deepen the flavor.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for the full 3 hours. Long simmering evaporates water from the tomatoes, thickening the sauce and concentrating its flavor. Cutting the boil short leaves the ketchup thinner and less developed.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, mustard, allspice, cider, 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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