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Tomato Catsup

A preserved tomato sauce made with vinegar, spices, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and horseradish 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

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Slice the tomatoes and place them in a preserving kettle.

  2. Boil until all the juice is extracted, stirring constantly to prevent scorching.

  3. Strain the mixture first through a colander, then through a sifter, pressing the pulp through.

Make the ketchup

  1. Return the juice to the cleaned kettle and add the vinegar.

  2. Add mustard seeds, black pepper, cloves, nutmeg, horseradish, celery seed, mixed mustard, red pepper, and sugar to taste.

  3. Boil until the mixture is quite thick.

  4. Just before finishing, add the chopped onion, garlic, and salt.

Bottle and store

  1. Bottle the catsup, seal, and store in a cool, dry place.

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. Mustard + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Clove + horseradishtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body, pulp and flavour of the ketchup.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the ketchup.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity and tomato tang.
Mustard seed
Contributes sharp, pungent flavour to the sauce.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and background flavour.
Horseradish
Adds a sharp, pungent heat that lifts the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil until quite thick. Tomato sauce keeps thickening as water evaporates, so stopping too early leaves it thin and watery. Stirring prevents scorching on the bottom of the kettle, where sugars can burn and taint the flavour.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, mustard, pepper, clove, nutmeg, horseradish. 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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