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Tomato Catsup

A preserved tomato sauce made with tomatoes, vinegar, salt, spices, and garlic, boiled until reduced.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the tomatoes until soft.

  2. Pass the tomatoes through a fine wire sieve.

  3. Add vinegar, salt, cloves, allspice, cayenne pepper, ground peppers, and garlic, and mix well.

  4. Boil for 3 hours, or until reduced by half.

  5. Bottle without straining.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

Tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the body and the sweet, acidic base of the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the sauce.
Garlic
Contributes pungent aroma that mellows during the long simmer.
Cayenne pepper
Adds heat that builds as the sauce reduces.

The step that matters

Boil until reduced by half. Long boiling evaporates water and concentrates the tomato solids, which thickens the ketchup and deepens its flavour. Stopping too early leaves it thin and watery, so check the volume rather than relying only on the time.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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