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Currant Catsup

A thick sauce made from ripe currants, sugar, vinegar, spices, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Currant Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cook the currants and sugar slowly until thick.

  2. Add the vinegar, cinnamon, cloves, salt, and black pepper.

  3. Cook for an additional 20 minutes.

  4. Bottle and seal the catsup.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Cinnamon + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Currant + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together693 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Currants
Provide the fruit body and natural pectin that help the ketchup thicken as it cooks.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and thickens the mixture as water evaporates, helping it keep.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the ketchup.
Ground cinnamon
Adds warm aroma and spiced flavor to the fruit.
Ground cloves
Adds strong, warm aroma that defines the spiced character of the ketchup.

The step that matters

Cooking the currants and sugar until thick. Thickening depends on water evaporating slowly while pectin from the currants and sugar concentrate. Too much heat can scorch the bottom and burn the sugar, while stopping too early leaves the ketchup thin and less stable.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Cherryfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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