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Tomato Catsup

A preserved tomato sauce made with tomatoes, vinegar, salt, garlic, cayenne pepper, black pepper, and allspice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,076 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil and strain the tomatoes through a sieve.

  2. Add vinegar, salt, garlic, cayenne pepper, black pepper, and allspice.

  3. Boil until it reaches the desired consistency.

  4. Bottle and seal the catsup.

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. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + garlictop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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 sauce, providing body, sweetness and acidity as they cook down.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the tomatoes and helps preserve the finished sauce.
Garlic
Contributes a pungent, savory aroma that deepens as the sauce simmers.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes that round out the sauce's flavour.

The step that matters

Boil until it reaches the desired consistency. As the sauce simmers, water evaporates and the tomato solids concentrate, thickening it. Stopping too early leaves it thin and watery, while boiling too long makes it overly thick and can scorch the bottom of the pan.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, vinegar, garlic, pepper):

  1. Basilfits better
  2. Corianderfits better
  3. Oreganofits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, vinegar, garlic, 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.

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