Name: Gooseberry Catsup
Ingredients: 12 pounds stemmed and clipped gooseberries; 8 pounds brown sugar; 1 tablespoon cinnamon; Spices to taste (including 1 teaspoon cayenne); 1 quart good vinegar

Why it works: Sugar and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Gooseberry Catsup

Ingredients

12 pounds stemmed and clipped gooseberries
8 pounds brown sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
Spices to taste (including 1 teaspoon cayenne)
1 quart good vinegar

Directions

Combine gooseberries, brown sugar, cinnamon, and spices in a large pot.
Boil for 2 hours.
Add vinegar, strain the mixture, and bottle it.

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.

Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Cinnamon + vinegartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,187 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Gooseberries: Provide the main fruit body, pectin and tartness that give the ketchup its base.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps thicken the mixture as it reduces.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the ketchup.

“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.