Name: Gooseberry Catsup
Ingredients: gooseberries; ½ cup water; 7 cups gooseberry pulp; 5 cups sugar; 2 teaspoons cinnamon; 3 teaspoons cloves

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Gooseberry Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the gooseberries in as little water as possible.
Strain the mixture through a fine sieve to obtain the pulp.
In a wide-mouthed bottle, combine the pulp, sugar, cinnamon, and cloves.

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.

Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Gooseberry + clovetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together15 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Gooseberry + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Gooseberry + sugartop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together131 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Gooseberries: Provide the main fruit pulp, with natural pectin and tartness that shape the ketchup's body and flavor.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps preserve the ketchup while balancing the fruit's sourness.
Cinnamon: Adds warm aroma and sweet spice flavor to the ketchup.
Cloves: Adds a strong, warm aromatic flavor that complements the fruit and sugar.