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Sauce

Tomato Catsup

A tomato sauce flavored with cloves, black pepper, nutmegs, and wine.

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 sit until the skin 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 combine with cloves, black pepper, and nutmegs.

Cook and finish

  1. Boil the mixture for 30 minutes, then add the wine.

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
Provide the main body, flavor, and liquid that forms the ketchup.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the tomatoes and seasons them during the 24-hour rest.
Wine
Adds acidity and a tangy depth of flavor to the finished sauce.
Cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice flavor to the sauce.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, pungent spice that balances the sweetness of the tomatoes.
Nutmegs
Add warm, aromatic spice notes to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boiling the mixture for 30 minutes. Long simmering thickens the sauce by evaporating water and concentrates the flavors. Boiling too briefly leaves it thin and the spices raw-tasting.

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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