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Tomato Ketchup

A preserved tomato sauce made with vinegar, garlic, salt, pepper, lemon juice, and sweet oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,076 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Tomato Ketchup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomato pulp

  1. Bake ripe tomatoes in a jar until tender.

  2. Strain and rub through a sieve.

Make the ketchup

  1. For every pound of juice, add 1 pint of vinegar, ½ ounce of sliced garlic, ¼ ounce of coarse sea salt, and ¼ ounce of finely powdered white pepper.

  2. Boil until all ingredients are soft, then rub through the sieve again.

  3. For every pound, add the juice of 3 lemons and boil until it reaches a cream‑like consistency.

Bottle and store

  1. When cold, bottle it, add a small amount of sweet oil on top, tie bladders over the bottles, and store in a dry 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. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Garlic + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,893 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Vinegar + garlictop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Tomato + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,063 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes
Form the main body and flavour of the ketchup once cooked and strained.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the finished ketchup.
Garlic
Contributes pungent aroma that deepens the savoury character of the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds extra acidity and brightness to balance the sweetness of the tomatoes.

The step that matters

Boiling down to a cream-like consistency. Boiling reduces water and concentrates the pulp, so the ketchup thickens. Stopping too early leaves it thin and watery, while overcooking can make it dense and sticky.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, vinegar, garlic, lemon):

  1. Corianderfits better
  2. Basilfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, vinegar, garlic, lemon. 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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