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Tomato Catsup

A thick tomato sauce made by boiling tomatoes, onions, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the tomatoes

  1. Boil the tomatoes for 30 minutes and strain through a sieve, mashing the pulp well.

  2. Return the strained mixture to a porcelain kettle.

Add the seasonings

  1. Add salt, mace, cloves, black pepper, red pepper, ground mustard, and part of the onions.

  2. Chop the remaining onions and tie them in a thin muslin bag with the spices.

Boil and finish

  1. Boil the mixture for 4 to 6 hours until thick.

  2. After cooling, add ½ pint of vinegar for each quart of catsup.

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 + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  3. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  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

Ripe tomatoes
Form the main body and liquid base of the catsup.
Onions
Add savoury depth and body as they soften during the long boil.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the sweetness of the tomatoes.
Cloves
Contribute a warm, aromatic flavour that infuses the mixture.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice note to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boiling until thick. The long simmer evaporates water and concentrates the tomato pulp, which is what thickens the catsup. Stopping early leaves it thin and watery, while overheating can scorch the bottom of the kettle, so the mixture should be stirred and watched as it reduces.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, clove, pepper, mustard, onion, 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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