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Sauce

Tomato Catsup

A tomato-based condiment made by cooking tomatoes with spices, sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Slice and cook the tomatoes until soft enough to pass through a sieve.

Make the ketchup

  1. To the pulp and juice, add onion, black pepper, red pepper, ginger and mustard mixture, celery seed, allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, sugar, and salt.

  2. Cook the mixture for 2 hours, or longer if not thick enough.

  3. Ensure the mixture is not thin or watery.

Bottle

  1. Bottle and seal while hot; it will keep for 2 years in a good cellar.

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. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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 pulp and juice that form the body of the ketchup.
Onion
Adds savory depth and body to the base as it cooks down.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the tomatoes and vinegar.
Strong cider vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the ketchup.
Red pepper pods
Contribute heat and a sharp, pungent flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook until thick, not thin or watery. Long simmering evaporates water from the tomato pulp, concentrating flavor and thickening the sauce. Stopping early leaves it thin, which also weakens its keeping quality in storage.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, ginger, mustard, celery, allspice, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, ginger, mustard, celery, allspice, nutmeg. 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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