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Tomato Ketchup

A homemade tomato ketchup made by boiling tomatoes, adding spices, simmering, and bottling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice 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 Ketchup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Wash and cut up the tomatoes.

  2. Boil the tomatoes for about 20 minutes.

  3. Strain the tomatoes.

Season and simmer

  1. Add the spices to the strained tomatoes.

  2. Simmer the mixture slowly for 3 hours.

Bottle

  1. Bottle and seal the ketchup.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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, moisture and sweet-tart flavor that the ketchup is built on.
Salt
Enhances overall flavor and helps draw out and balance the tomato taste.
Mustard
Adds sharp, tangy flavor that balances the sweetness of the tomatoes.
Black pepper
Adds mild heat and aromatic bite to the seasoning blend.
Cayenne pepper
Adds pungent heat that gives the ketchup a noticeable kick.

The step that matters

Slow simmer. Simmering slowly for a long time lets excess water evaporate, thickening the tomatoes into a spreadable consistency and concentrating their flavor. Too rapid a boil can scorch the bottom and cause uneven texture.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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