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Sauce

Gooseberry Catsup

A fermented vinegar-based sauce made with gooseberries, raisins, currants, onions, chilies, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Gooseberry Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the vinegar, currants, raisins, onions, gooseberries, and chilies until quite soft.

  2. Pour the mixture through a fine sieve over the remaining ingredients.

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 + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 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. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,595 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

Gooseberries
Provide the main fruit body and tartness that forms the ketchup.
Vinegar
Adds acidity and helps soften the fruit while boiling.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth that balances the sharp vinegar and fruit.
Raisins
Add sweetness and body, thickening the ketchup as the fruit breaks down.
Currants
Add tart fruit flavour and body to the boiled mixture.
Mustard
Adds sharpness and pungency that carries the spice blend.

The step that matters

Boiling until quite soft. The fruit must be cooked fully so it breaks down and can pass through the sieve smoothly. Undercooked gooseberries stay firm, leaving a grainy, uneven ketchup that does not thicken properly.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, raisin, mustard, onion, allspice, ginger):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, raisin, mustard, onion, allspice, ginger. 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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