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Grape Catsup

A sweet and spicy grape-based ketchup made by simmering grapes, adding sugar, vinegar, spices, and thickening.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Grape Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Simmer the grapes until soft, then strain through a colander.

  2. Add brown sugar, vinegar, allspice, cinnamon, cloves, mace, salt, and red pepper.

  3. Boil the mixture until thick.

  4. Bottle the catsup.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Allspice + peppertop 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

Grapes
Provide the main fruit body and pulp that forms the ketchup base.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and, as it cooks down, helps thicken and darken the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the sauce.
Allspice
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until thick. Sauce thickens as water evaporates and sugars concentrate during prolonged boiling. Stopping too early leaves it thin and watery, while overcooking can make it stick and scorch on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against grape, sugar, vinegar, allspice, cinnamon, clove, pepper. 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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