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Sauce

Tomato Catsup

A fermented tomato sauce seasoned with cloves, allspice, cinnamon, cayenne pepper, salt, mustard, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Boil the cut tomatoes until tender.

  2. Sift the boiled tomatoes through a wire sieve.

Season and cook

  1. Add ground cloves, allspice, cinnamon, cayenne pepper, coarse sea salt, mustard, and vinegar.

  2. Boil gently for 3 hours.

  3. Bottle and seal while warm.

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. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Clove + peppertop 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

Ripe tomatoes
Provides the bulk and body of the sauce as the pulp breaks down during boiling.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that gives the ketchup its tang and helps it keep.
Mustard
Adds pungent, sharp flavour that balances the tomato's sweetness.
Cayenne pepper
Adds gentle heat that rounds out the spice blend.
Ground cloves
Contributes a warm, strong aroma that sits behind the tomato flavour.
Cinnamon
Adds sweet, woody warmth to the spice blend.

The step that matters

Boil gently for 3 hours. Long, gentle simmering evaporates water, thickens the sauce and concentrates its flavour. A fierce boil can scorch the tomatoes on the base of the pan and dull the spices, so keep the heat low enough for a slow simmer.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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