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Tomato Catsup

A preserved tomato sauce made with tomatoes, cloves, black pepper, nutmeg, wine, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Pour boiling water over the tomatoes and let them stand until the skins can be rubbed off.

  2. Cover the peeled tomatoes with coarse sea salt and let them stand for 24 hours.

  3. Strain the tomatoes, then add cloves, black pepper, and nutmegs.

Cook and finish

  1. Boil the mixture for 30 minutes.

  2. Add the wine and stir well.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  5. Tomato + winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,759 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 body and main flavour of the ketchup as they cook down.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the tomatoes and seasons them during the 24-hour rest.
Wine
Adds acidity and a sharp, tangy note to balance the sweetness of the tomatoes.
Cloves
Contribute a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the sauce.
Black pepper
Adds a sharp, mildly hot aromatic bite to the sauce.
Nutmegs
Add a warm, sweet aromatic note that rounds out the spices.

The step that matters

Boiling the strained tomato mixture. Boiling for the full 30 minutes lets the sauce reduce and thicken and mellows the raw spice flavours. Stopping early leaves the sauce thin and the spices harsh. Adding the wine only after boiling keeps its acidity fresh.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, pepper, nutmeg, wine):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, pepper, nutmeg, wine. 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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