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Tomato Catsup

A preserved tomato sauce made by boiling tomatoes, seasoning with pepper and cloves, and adding vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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. Split the tomatoes and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

  2. Let them sit for twenty-four hours.

  3. Mash the tomatoes and run them through a sieve to remove seeds and skin.

Cook and bottle

  1. Season the mixture with red pepper and cloves to taste.

  2. Boil the mixture until it begins to settle at the bottom of the kettle.

  3. Add 1 quart of vinegar, then bottle and seal tightly.

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

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

  3. Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Clove + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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, moisture and sweetness that the sauce is built from.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the finished ketchup.
Cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice notes to the sauce.
Red pepper
Adds heat and a sharp, pungent note to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil until the mixture begins to settle. Boiling reduces the water in the tomato pulp and thickens the sauce; stopping too early leaves it thin and watery, while cooking too long can scorch the bottom of the kettle.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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