Skip to main content
Drink

Tomato Catsup

A thick tomato-based condiment made with tomatoes, vinegar, salt, pepper, mustard, cloves, and onions.

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

Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the ketchup

  1. Combine tomatoes, vinegar, salt, black pepper, mustard, cloves, and sliced onions in a pot.

  2. Boil the mixture until it thickens.

  3. Strain the mixture through a colander.

Bottle and store

  1. Bottle the catsup and cork tightly.

  2. Store in a cool place.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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, moisture and flavor base that thickens into the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the sauce.
Onions
Contribute savory sweetness and aroma as they cook down into the sauce.
Salt
Seasons the sauce and draws out flavor from the vegetables.

The step that matters

Boil until it thickens. Boiling evaporates water so the sauce reduces and thickens. Stopping too early leaves it thin and watery, while the acidity from the vinegar helps keep it stable in storage.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, mustard, clove, onion. 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

Raspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesSugar VinegarSugar Vinegar20 recipesVegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipes