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Tomato Catsup

A preserved tomato sauce made by boiling tomatoes with spices, vinegar, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Cut the ripe tomatoes into pieces and place them in a pot.

  2. Boil the tomatoes until soft.

  3. Strain and press the mixture through a coarse sieve.

  4. Return the strained mixture to the kettle.

Season and cook

  1. Add the spices: salt, black pepper, Cayenne pepper, ground cloves, celery seed, and ground mustard.

  2. Boil for at least four hours, stirring constantly for the last hour.

  3. Add vinegar and sugar just before removing from heat.

Bottle

  1. Bottle and seal securely.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes
Provide the main body, flavour and bulk of the ketchup once cooked down and strained.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the finished sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the tomatoes and vinegar.
Sea salt
Seasons the sauce and enhances the flavour of the tomatoes and spices.

The step that matters

Long simmer with stirring in the last hour. Prolonged boiling evaporates water and concentrates the tomato flavour and thickness. Stirring constantly in the final hour prevents the sugars and solids from scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, clove, celery, mustard, vinegar, sugar. 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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