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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) · 10 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 ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Wipe the tomatoes clean, cut them up, and cook until soft.

  2. Strain the cooked tomatoes through a sieve.

Simmer the ketchup

  1. In a large pot, combine the strained tomatoes with vinegar, salt, sugar, black pepper, mustard, cinnamon, cloves, mace, and red pepper.

  2. Tie the spices (except red pepper) in a bag and add to the pot.

  3. Boil the mixture slowly for 4 to 5 hours.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Mustard + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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

Ripe tomatoes
Provide the main body, pulp and flavour of the ketchup.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the ketchup.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the tomatoes and vinegar.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the ketchup and enhances the flavour of the tomatoes.
Cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice notes during the long simmer.

The step that matters

Slow boil for 4 to 5 hours. Long, gentle simmering evaporates water and thickens the tomato pulp into a spreadable ketchup. Boiling too hard can scorch the sugars and tomatoes on the bottom of the pot, so the mixture should be stirred and kept at a slow boil.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

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