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Sauce

Superior Catsup

A homemade tomato ketchup made by boiling tomatoes, seasoning with salt, allspice, sugar, cloves, and optional onions and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove 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 ↓

Superior Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Slice the tomatoes and boil them for 15 minutes or until tender.

  2. Strain the tomatoes through a fine sieve.

Cook the ketchup

  1. Add salt, allspice, sugar, and cloves to the strained tomatoes.

  2. Cook the mixture slowly in a porcelain-lined kettle until it reduces to half the quantity.

  3. If desired, add 3 white onions during cooking.

  4. For a sour catsup, add 1 cup of vinegar just before bottling.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Clove + tomatotop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Clove + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Allspice + tomatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together670 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body, flavour and liquid that reduces into the thick sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the acidity of the tomatoes.
Vinegar
Adds sourness and acidity, giving the sour style of catsup.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until reduced by half. Slow cooking lets water evaporate gently so the sauce thickens without scorching on the bottom of the pot. Stirring and a heavy, non-reactive kettle help prevent sticking and off flavours.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (allspice, sugar, clove, tomato, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against allspice, sugar, clove, tomato, 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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