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Sauce

Tomato Catsup

A tomato-based sauce made by boiling tomatoes, adding vinegar, spices, onions, and sugar, then straining and bottling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Boil the tomatoes until tender.

  2. Rub the tomatoes through a colander.

Cook the ketchup

  1. Add cider vinegar, salt, black pepper, allspice, cayenne pepper, onions, nutmeg, and brown sugar.

  2. Boil the mixture down.

  3. Strain through a sieve to remove the onions.

  4. 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. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + allspicetop 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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  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
Form the main body and bulk of the sauce once cooked and pressed smooth.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the sauce.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth, balancing the vinegar and spices.
Onions
Contribute savory flavor as they simmer, then are strained out.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture down. Long simmering evaporates water and concentrates the sugars, acids and spices, so the sauce thickens and its flavor deepens. Stopping too early leaves it thin and watery.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cider, vinegar, pepper, allspice, nutmeg, sugar. 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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