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Gooseberry Catsup

Gooseberry ketchup made by boiling gooseberries with sugar, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Gooseberry Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the gooseberries and place them in a porcelain kettle.

  2. Mash the gooseberries.

  3. Scald the gooseberries.

  4. Rub the gooseberries through a coarse sieve.

Cook and bottle

  1. Add the brown sugar and boil for 3 hours.

  2. Tie the spices in a bag and add them to the mixture, then cook a little longer.

  3. Add vinegar to taste.

  4. Bottle immediately.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Clove + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + vinegartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Gooseberries
Make up the bulk of the ketchup and, with their natural pectin, help it thicken as it cooks.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the ketchup and deepens its colour and flavour as it boils.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and sharpens the fruit flavour.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet spice aroma to the ketchup.
Cloves
Adds pungent, warm spice aroma to the ketchup.

The step that matters

Cooking the mixture long enough. Boiling drives off water and lets the fruit pectin and sugar concentrate, so the ketchup thickens. Stopping early leaves it thin and more likely to spoil in the bottle, so the full simmer time matters.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cinnamon, sugar, vinegar):

  1. Allspicefits about as well
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Cardamomfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, sugar, vinegar. 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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