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Green Tomato Catsup

A preserved green tomato ketchup with onions, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Green Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the green tomatoes and onions.

  2. Layer the tomatoes and onions with salt and let stand for 24 hours, then drain.

Cook

  1. Add mustard seed, sweet oil, allspice, cloves, ground mustard, ground ginger, black pepper, celery seed, and brown sugar.

  2. Put all ingredients in a preserving pan, cover with vinegar, and boil for 2 hours.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Green tomatoes
Provide the main body and bulk of the ketchup as they break down during cooking.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and body that thickens the ketchup as they soften.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the tomatoes and onions during the long standing period.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and spices.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the ketchup and gives it its tangy flavour.

The step that matters

Boil for 2 hours in the preserving pan. A long, steady boil in vinegar reduces the liquid and concentrates the flavours, while the acid helps keep the ketchup stable. Too little cooking leaves it thin and sharp.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, mustard, allspice, clove, ginger, pepper, celery. 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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