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Tomato Catsup

A preserved tomato sauce seasoned with salt, pepper, mustard, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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. Wash the tomatoes and break them open without peeling.

  2. Put them in a large pot and boil.

  3. Drain the mixture through a sieve, removing the skin and seeds.

Season and cook

  1. For every gallon of tomato pulp, add salt, pepper, mustard, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, sugar, and vinegar.

  2. Boil the mixture for 2 to 3 hours.

Bottle

  1. Bottle the catsup tightly.

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. 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. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main body, pulp and natural acidity that form the ketchup base.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the finished ketchup.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and tomatoes with sweetness.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, warm heat that rounds out the spiced flavor.

The step that matters

Boil for 2 to 3 hours. Long simmering evaporates water and concentrates the tomato pulp, so the ketchup thickens and its flavors deepen. Stopping early leaves it thin and watery.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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