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Tomato Ketchup

A tomato ketchup made by simmering tomatoes with spices and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice 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 Ketchup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Cut the tomatoes into slices.

  2. Layer the sliced tomatoes in a deep pan, sprinkling 4 ounces of salt between the layers.

  3. Let the tomatoes sit for 24 hours to release their juice.

Make the ketchup

  1. Pour the juice into a pot and boil it with shallots and capsicums for 30 minutes.

  2. Press the tomatoes through a sieve.

  3. Stir the pulp into the juice.

Bottle and seal

  1. While warm, pour the ketchup into warm bottles.

  2. Cork the bottles securely.

  3. Seal the corks.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Tomato + capsicumtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,520 recipes

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

  4. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Capsicum + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,571 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
Provide the main body, pulp and juice that form the ketchup.
Coarse sea salt
Draws juice out of the tomatoes and helps preserve the ketchup.
Shallots
Add savoury depth and aromatic flavour to the boiled juice.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the ketchup.

The step that matters

Pour the ketchup into warm bottles and cork them securely. Bottling while warm helps seal the bottles as they cool, and a tight cork keeps air and microbes out. A loose seal risks spoilage in storage.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, shallot, capsicum, pepper, clove, ginger, allspice):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, shallot, capsicum, pepper, clove, ginger, allspice. 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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