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Sauce

Green Tomato Catsup

A fermented tomato sauce made with green tomatoes, cabbage, onions, and spices, simmered for hours and bottled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Green Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the tomatoes, cabbage, onions, and red peppers finely.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and let stand overnight.

  3. Drain the mixture, then add the spices and brown sugar.

Cook and store

  1. Boil slowly for 4 hours until thick and smooth.

  2. Store in bottles.

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. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mustard + cabbagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + oniontop 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 bulk of the ketchup and provide its main body and acidity.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and body, helping the mixture thicken as it cooks.
Onions
Contribute savory depth and aroma as the mixture cooks down.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the tomatoes.
Red peppers
Add heat and a bright, sharp flavour to the ketchup.

The step that matters

Boil slowly for 4 hours until thick and smooth. Long, gentle simmering lets water evaporate so the mixture thickens without scorching on the bottom. Too fast a boil can burn the sugars and leave the texture uneven.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, cabbage, pepper, onion, ginger, clove, sugar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, cabbage, pepper, onion, ginger, clove, 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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