Skip to main content
Main

Tomato Catsup

A thick tomato sauce made with vinegar, spices, and sweetener.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine all ingredients in a large pot.

  2. Boil the mixture until it thickens.

  3. Bottle the catsup for storage.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomato pulp
Provides the main body, flavor base and liquid that the sauce reduces into a thick ketchup.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the finished sauce.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes.
Onions
Contribute savory depth and aromatic flavor to the sauce as it cooks down.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until it thickens. Tomato sauce thickens as water evaporates during boiling. Stopping too early leaves it thin and watery, while over-reducing can make it dense and sticky. Stirring helps prevent scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, ginger, horseradish, 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.

More tomato ketchup recipes

Green 26 See all 523 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes