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Sauce

Grape Catsup

A sweet and tangy grape-based condiment made with grapes, sugar, spices, salt, and cider vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Grape Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the grapes

  1. Wash and stew the grapes over a slow fire until soft.

  2. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

Make the ketchup

  1. Add the sugar, cinnamon, allspice, black pepper, salt, and cider vinegar.

  2. Boil the mixture until it thickens slightly.

  3. 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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  4. Grape + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,164 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Cinnamon + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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 flavor, cooked down to a soft pulp for the sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps thicken the sauce as it boils down.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and gives the ketchup its tang.

The step that matters

Boil until it thickens slightly. Sugar and fruit pectin concentrate as water evaporates, so the sauce thickens during boiling. Stopping too early leaves it thin and watery, while boiling too long can make it overly stiff once it cools.

Swap the grape

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

  1. Plumfits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, allspice, pepper, cider, 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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