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Tomato Catsup

A thick tomato-based condiment made by simmering tomato juice with spices, mustard, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Simmer

  1. In a large pot, combine the strained tomato juice with mustard, black pepper, coarse sea salt, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, cayenne pepper, and chopped green pepper.

  2. Boil the mixture for three hours, stirring frequently.

  3. Add the vinegar towards the end of the cooking time.

Bottle

  1. Once cooled, bottle the catsup and seal it.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomato juice
Forms the thick liquid base and carries all the other flavors.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and brightens the tomato flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that rounds out the acidity and spices.

The step that matters

Stirring during the long boil. As the tomato juice reduces and thickens, its sugars concentrate and can scorch on the bottom of the pot. Frequent stirring prevents sticking and burnt flavor.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, pepper, cinnamon, allspice, clove, sugar, 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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