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Sauce

Tomato Catsup

A thick tomato sauce made with onions, sugar, vinegar, spices, and ground nuts, boiled and strained into bottles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the onions until soft.

  2. In a 10-quart pan, combine the peeled and chopped tomatoes with the red pepper pods.

  3. Boil until soft enough to strain through a sieve, stirring frequently to prevent burning.

Make the ketchup

  1. After straining, add 2 quarts of the tomato liquid, salt, allspice, white pepper, cloves, and ground nuts.

  2. Simmer the mixture over low heat until it reduces by half, stirring frequently.

Bottle and store

  1. Let it cool before bottling.

  2. Cork the bottles tightly and store in a cool, dark place.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body, flavour and liquid that reduces into the thick ketchup.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and body once softened and strained with the tomatoes.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that gives ketchup its tang and helps preserve it.
Sugar
Balances the acidity and adds sweetness to the finished ketchup.

The step that matters

Simmering down the mixture. Simmering over low heat while stirring frequently reduces the liquid and thickens the ketchup. Stirring prevents the sugars and solids from scorching on the bottom of the pan, which would give a burnt taste.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, sugar, vinegar, tomato, pepper, allspice, clove. 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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