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Sauce

Cold Catsup

A preserved tomato ketchup made with tomatoes, onions, peppers, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Cold Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and chop tomatoes very fine and drain well.

  2. Chop onions and peppers fine.

Combine and bottle

  1. Mix all ingredients together.

  2. Add spices and vinegar.

  3. Bottle and seal.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the bulk and body of the ketchup, providing most of its flavour and sweetness.
Onions
Add sharp, savoury aroma and depth of flavour to the sauce.
Peppers
Contribute fresh, slightly bitter vegetable flavour and texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps keep the sauce stable.
White mustard seed
Adds pungent, sharp heat that balances the sweetness of the tomatoes.
Celery seed
Adds a warm, earthy aroma that rounds out the spice blend.

The step that matters

Drain the tomatoes well. Tomatoes release a lot of liquid when chopped. Removing the excess water keeps the ketchup thick rather than thin and watery, and stops the flavour from being diluted.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, mustard, celery, clove, cinnamon, 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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