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Sauce

Tomato Catsup

A thick tomato sauce seasoned with salt, pepper, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the strained tomatoes, salt, black pepper, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, and vinegar in a large pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat.

  3. Simmer until the mixture has reduced by half.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Strained tomatoes
Forms the thick body and the main tomato flavor of the ketchup as it reduces.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the reduced tomatoes.
Ground cloves
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes to the sauce.
Ground cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma that rounds out the spice blend.
Allspice
Adds aromatic, peppery-sweet flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer until reduced by half. This is where the ketchup thickens and its flavors concentrate. Reducing too little leaves it thin and watery, while reducing too far or at too high a heat can scorch the bottom of the pot as sugars and solids concentrate.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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