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Green Tomato Catsup

A fermented tomato condiment made with green tomatoes, peppers, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Green Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the green tomatoes and red peppers (or use cayenne).

Make the ketchup

  1. Cook the tomatoes and peppers in vinegar until soft.

  2. Strain the mixture, then add salt, black pepper, mustard, ground cloves, and allspice.

  3. Boil slowly for 5 hours.

  4. Let cool, then bottle and seal.

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  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

Green tomatoes
Provide the main body and tart flavor of the ketchup once cooked down.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the ketchup its tang and helps preserve it.
Red peppers
Add heat and a sharp, pungent flavor to the ketchup.
Salt
Seasons the ketchup and draws out flavor from the other ingredients.

The step that matters

Boil slowly for 5 hours. A long, gentle boil lets water evaporate and the vinegar and spices concentrate, thickening the ketchup. Boiling too hard can scorch the bottom and burn the flavor, so the heat should stay low and the pot should be stirred.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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