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Tomato Catsup

A fermented tomato sauce thickened with vinegar, sugar, and cayenne, bottled with cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Slice the ripe tomatoes to fill two gallon jars.

  2. Lightly salt the tomatoes.

  3. Let stand for about 24 hours to ferment.

Make the ketchup

  1. Add the onions.

  2. Cook the onions.

  3. Strain the mixture.

  4. Add the cider vinegar and sugar to the strained tomatoes.

  5. Cook until thick.

  6. Stir in the cayenne pepper.

Bottle and seal

  1. Fill bottles with the mixture.

  2. Add one whole clove to each bottle.

  3. Seal the bottles.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Ripe tomatoes
Provide the main body and flavor base of the ketchup.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the tomatoes and helps begin the fermentation.
Onions
Add savory depth and aromatic flavor to the cooked mixture.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens flavor and helps preserve the ketchup.
Sugar
Balances the acidity and sharpness with sweetness.

The step that matters

Cook until thick. Cooking drives off water and concentrates the tomato solids, so the ketchup thickens to the right consistency. Stopping too early leaves it thin and watery, and overcooking can scorch the sugars and tomato.

Swap the onion

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

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

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