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Uncooked Catsup

A raw tomato-based condiment made with onions, nasturtium seeds, horseradish, celery, mustard seed, spices, sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Uncooked Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chopped tomatoes, onions, nasturtium seeds, horseradish, celery, and mustard seed.

  2. Add the coarse sea salt, black pepper, cloves, cinnamon, mace, sugar, and vinegar, then mix all ingredients thoroughly.

Bottle and ripen

  1. Transfer the mixture into jars or bottles.

  2. Let it stand for several weeks to ripen.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 and bulk of the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the sauce and gives it its sharp tang.
Horseradish
Contributes a sharp, pungent heat that mellows during ripening.
Mustard seed
Adds pungency and a slightly bitter, sharp background flavor.
Sugar
Balances the acidity and sharpness with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Letting it stand to ripen. Raw ingredients and vinegar need weeks of resting so the sharp flavors blend and soften. Serving too soon leaves the sauce harsh and unbalanced.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, horseradish, celery, mustard, pepper, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, horseradish, celery, mustard, pepper, clove, cinnamon. 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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