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Sauce

Tomato Catsup

A tomato-based condiment made with stewed tomatoes, vinegar, sugar, salt, pepper, cinnamon, and mustard, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,581 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Strain the stewed tomatoes through a fine sieve.

  2. Add the spices to the strained tomatoes.

Cook and bottle

  1. Cook the mixture slowly for 3 hours.

  2. Bottle the catsup and seal it.

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. Cinnamon + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Stewed tomatoes
Form the main body and bulk of the ketchup, providing moisture that cooks down into a thick sauce.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and tomato flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that rounds out the acidity and tomato flavor.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture slowly for 3 hours. Long, gentle cooking evaporates water so the sauce thickens and its flavors concentrate. Cooking too hot or unattended can scorch the sugars and tomato solids on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, pepper, cinnamon, mustard):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, pepper, cinnamon, mustard. 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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