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Sauce

Tomato Catsup

A preserved tomato sauce made by boiling tomatoes with spices and sealing in a bottle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook

  1. Combine all ingredients in a kettle.

  2. Boil until the mixture reduces by half.

Bottle and store

  1. Strain the mixture and bottle it tightly using sealing wax.

  2. Store in a cool 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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provides the main liquid and body, and reducing it thickens the ketchup.
Onions
Adds savory flavor and body as they soften and break down during boiling.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet spice aroma and flavor.
Cloves
Adds a strong, warm aroma that carries through the reduction.
Allspice
Adds peppery, warm aroma and depth to the spice flavor.
Mustard seed
Adds sharp, pungent flavor and aroma.

The step that matters

Boil until the mixture reduces by half. Reduction concentrates the flavors and thickens the sauce. Stopping at the right point matters: too little reduction leaves the ketchup thin and weakly flavored, while too much makes it overly thick and intense.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, mustard, clove, cinnamon, allspice):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Eggplantfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, mustard, clove, cinnamon, allspice. 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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