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Sauce

Cold Tomato Catsup

A chilled tomato-based condiment made with tomatoes, horseradish, peppers, mustard seeds, salt, sugar, spices, vinegar, and celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cold Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the tomatoes finely.

  2. Grate the horseradish.

  3. Remove seeds from the red peppers and chop them.

Combine and rest

  1. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl.

  2. Mix well and let sit for a few hours to blend flavors.

  3. Store in a sealed container in the refrigerator.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Horseradish + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together515 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes
Provide the bulk and body of the catsup.
Horseradish
Adds sharp pungency that cuts through the sweetness.
White sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the vinegar's acidity.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the catsup.
Black mustard seeds
Contribute sharp, pungent heat that develops as the seeds soak.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the catsup and draws moisture that helps flavors concentrate.

The step that matters

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl.. Mustard seeds and horseradish release their pungency gradually once wet, so the flavor is sharpest after resting. Mix thoroughly so the salt and sugar dissolve evenly and the seasoning is consistent throughout.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, horseradish, pepper, mustard, sugar, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, horseradish, pepper, mustard, sugar, clove, cinnamon. 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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