Skip to main content
Drink

Tomato Catsup

A tomato-based sauce made with vinegar, salt, mustard, and spices, boiled and bottled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Scald and peel the tomatoes and onions.

  2. Boil them with 1 pint of vinegar until tender enough to rub through a sieve.

Make the ketchup

  1. Add 1 cup of coarse sea salt, ½ cup of mustard mixed with ½ cup of vinegar, and the spices.

  2. Boil all ingredients together for 1 hour.

Bottle and seal

  1. Bottle the hot catsup in bottles heated in hot water.

  2. Cork and seal the bottles while hot.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 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
Form the main body of the sauce once boiled and rubbed through a sieve.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the sauce.
Mustard
Contributes pungent flavor that balances the sweetness of the tomatoes.
Onions
Add savory depth and aroma as they soften during boiling.

The step that matters

Rubbing the boiled tomatoes and onions through a sieve. Tomatoes must be fully tender before straining, or the pulp will not pass through and the texture stays coarse. Pressing through removes skins and seeds, giving the smooth body a ketchup needs.

Swap the mace

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

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

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

More tomato ketchup recipes

Green 26 See all 523 →

You might also like

Raspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesSugar VinegarSugar Vinegar20 recipesVegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipes