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Pepper Catsup

A spicy pepper catsup made by boiling bell peppers with vinegar, sugar, spices, and optional onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Pepper Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the bell peppers and combine them with 1 pint of vinegar in a pot.

  2. Boil until soft enough to pass through a sieve.

Make the catsup

  1. Add another pint of vinegar, sugar, cloves, mace, spice, salt, and onion if desired.

  2. Boil all ingredients together until thick.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Red bell peppers
Provide the main body, sweetness and flavor of the catsup once cooked down and sieved.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the catsup its tangy flavor and helps preserve it.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Boil all ingredients together until thick. Long simmering evaporates water and concentrates flavor and body. Stopping too early leaves the catsup thin and watery, while over-reducing can scorch the sugar and peppers on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, vinegar, sugar, clove, mace):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, vinegar, sugar, clove, mace. 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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