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Sauce

Tomato Catsup

A fermented tomato sauce with vinegar, onions, horseradish, ginger, pepper, allspice, brown sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Stew the ripe tomatoes for 45 minutes.

  2. Pass the stewed tomatoes through a sieve or colander.

Make the ketchup

  1. In a large bowl, combine the strained tomatoes with vinegar, chopped onions, horseradish, ginger, black pepper, allspice, brown sugar, and salt.

  2. Mix well and let it cool.

Bottle and store

  1. Bottle the mixture and seal the bottles.

  2. Store the bottles in a dry cellar.

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. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Horseradish + allspicetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together654 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Onion + horseradishtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  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

Ripe tomatoes
Provide the main body, flavor and liquid of the ketchup once stewed and strained.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the mixture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth, balancing the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes.
Silver onions
Add savory pungency and body to the ketchup.
Horseradish
Contributes sharp heat and pungency that carries through the sauce.

The step that matters

Stew the tomatoes for the full time. Tomatoes need sustained heat to soften fully and release their pectin and juices. Under-stewed tomatoes leave the strained pulp thin and watery, which weakens the final texture.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, onion, horseradish, ginger, pepper, allspice, sugar):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, onion, horseradish, ginger, pepper, allspice, sugar. 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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