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Tomato Catsup

A tomato-based condiment made by stewing tomatoes with spices, then reducing and bottling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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. Stew the tomatoes, salt, black pepper, allspice, ground mustard, and red pepper together in the vinegar for 3 hours.

  2. Strain the mixture to remove solids.

  3. Simmer the liquid down to ½ gallon.

Bottle

  1. Bottle the hot catsup and cork 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main body, flavor and liquid base of the ketchup.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the finished ketchup.
Red pepper
Adds heat and pungency to the sauce.
Ground mustard
Adds sharp, tangy aroma and a background bite.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes.

The step that matters

Simmer the liquid down to ½ gallon. Reducing the strained liquid concentrates the flavors and thickens the sauce. Stopping too early leaves it thin and watery, while over-reducing can make it overly sharp, sticky, or scorched on the bottom.

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.

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