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Sauce

Tomato Catsup

A fermented tomato sauce seasoned with salt, mustard, pepper, allspice, cloves, cayenne, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Scald and strain the tomatoes through a coarse sieve to remove seeds and skins.

Cook

  1. In a large pot, combine the strained tomatoes with salt, ground mustard, black pepper, allspice, cloves, cayenne pepper, and vinegar.

  2. Simmer the mixture slowly for 4 hours.

Bottle

  1. Bottle the catsup and cork it tightly.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

Good ripe tomatoes
Provide the main body, flavour and liquid base of the ketchup.
White wine or cider vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the sauce.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the sauce and draws out flavour from the tomatoes.
Ground mustard
Adds sharp, pungent aroma and a touch of heat to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer the mixture slowly for 4 hours. Long, gentle simmering evaporates water and concentrates the tomato solids, thickening the sauce and deepening its flavour. Too much heat can scorch the sugars and solids on the bottom of the pot, so the mixture needs regular stirring and a low setting.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, pepper, allspice, clove, white 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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