Name: Currant Catsup
Ingredients: 5 quarts currant juice; 3 pounds sugar; 1 pint vinegar; 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon; 1 tablespoon ground cloves; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon pepper

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 ↓

Currant Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the currant juice and sugar together until it thickens.
Add the vinegar, ground cinnamon, ground cloves, salt, and pepper.
Bottle the mixture for use.

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.

Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Cinnamon + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,890 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Currant + vinegartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together693 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Currant juice: Provides the main fruit flavor and liquid base that reduces into the ketchup.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and, as it boils down, helps thicken the mixture.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and gives the ketchup its tang.

Swap the currant

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

Limefits better
Cherryfits better
Figfits better
Currantthe original

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