Skip to main content
Main

Grape Catsup

A sweet and spicy grape condiment made by boiling grapes with sugar, vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Grape Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the grapes

  1. Carefully pick over the grapes and place them in a porcelain kettle with enough water to prevent burning.

  2. Boil the grapes until the pulp is dissolved, stirring frequently.

  3. Once the pulp is soft, strain it through a colander and return it to the kettle.

Season and thicken

  1. Add the sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, pepper, and salt.

  2. Boil the mixture until it thickens slightly, stirring constantly.

Bottle

  1. Set aside to cool, then bottle and seal.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Grapes
Provide the fruit pulp that forms the body and base flavor of the catsup.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, as it dissolves and boils down, helps thicken the catsup.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the catsup.
Ground cinnamon
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavor.
Ground cloves
Contributes strong, aromatic spice flavor.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until it thickens slightly, stirring constantly. Sugar and pulp thicken as water evaporates during boiling. Constant stirring prevents scorching on the bottom of the kettle, which would give a burnt taste.

Swap the grape

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Grapethe original

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

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes