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Tomato Catsup

A preserved tomato sauce made by boiling tomatoes, seasoning with vinegar, cinnamon, cloves, salt, and onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

  1. Boil the tomatoes until reduced to 1 gallon.

  2. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

  3. Add the vinegar, cinnamon, cloves, salt, and onion.

  4. Boil thoroughly, then skim off the spices.

  5. Bottle the catsup airtight.

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. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,348 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  5. Clove + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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 that reduces into the thick ketchup base.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the ketchup its tang and helps preserve it.
Salt
Seasons the sauce and sharpens the flavors of the tomato and spices.
Onion
Adds savory depth and aromatic flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil thoroughly, then skim off the spices. Boiling long enough cooks the sauce down and blends the spice flavors into it. Skimming removes the whole cinnamon and cloves so they do not keep steeping and make the ketchup bitter or overly spiced.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Eggplantfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, vinegar, cinnamon, clove. 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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