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Sauce

Tomato Catsup

A thick tomato sauce made by cooking tomatoes, onions, green peppers, and spices, then sieving, thickening, and bottling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

Make the base

  1. Cook the tomatoes, onions, and green peppers until perfectly tender.

  2. Run the mixture through a coarse sieve.

  3. Cook again until thick.

Season and finish

  1. Pound the spices coarsely and place the powdered spices in a muslin bag.

  2. Add the spices, sugar, and salt to the mixture.

  3. If desired, add red pepper for extra heat.

  4. Thin the mixture with cider vinegar until it reaches a thick cream consistency.

  5. Seal in bottles.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 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

Tomatoes
Form the bulk of the sauce, providing body, moisture and tomato flavor once cooked down.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and body as they soften and break down during cooking.
Green peppers
Contribute vegetal flavor and aroma that balances the sweetness of the sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the tomatoes and vinegar.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity for tang and thins the mixture to the desired consistency.
White mustard seed
Contributes pungency and aroma to the spice blend.

The step that matters

Cook again until thick. Tomato sauce thickens only as water evaporates, so it must be reduced fully before spices and vinegar are added. Stopping early leaves a thin sauce that may spoil sooner, and scorching near the end can make it taste burnt.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, clove, mustard, sugar, cider, 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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