Skip to main content
Main

Tomato Catsup

A tomato-based sauce seasoned with salt, pepper, allspice, mustard, red pepper, and vinegar, reduced to a thick consistency.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Allspice and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,928 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the ketchup

  1. Combine the skinned tomatoes, coarse sea salt, black pepper, allspice, ground mustard, red pepper, and vinegar in a large pot.

  2. Stew the mixture slowly for 3 hours.

  3. Strain the liquid to remove solids.

  4. Simmer the strained liquid until it reduces to ½ gallon.

Bottle

  1. Bottle the hot 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 + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 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

Skinned tomatoes
Provide the main body, moisture and tomato flavour that the sauce is built on.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the sauce.
Red pepper
Adds heat and a sharp, spicy note to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer the strained liquid until it reduces to ½ gallon. Reduction concentrates the flavour and thickens the sauce. Stopping too early leaves it thin and watery, while reducing too far can make it overly thick and intensely seasoned.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, allspice, mustard, 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.

More tomato ketchup recipes

Green 26 See all 523 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesCream Tomato SoupCream Tomato Soup28 recipes