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Tomato Catsup

A preserved tomato sauce made with tomatoes, salt, sugar, spices, vinegar, and optional brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Boil the ripe tomatoes, skins and all, until soft.

  2. Mash the tomatoes through a colander to remove skins and seeds.

Cook the ketchup

  1. Mix the salt, brown sugar, cayenne pepper, allspice, mace, celery seed, and cinnamon in a muslin bag.

  2. Add the muslin bag to the tomatoes along with the vinegar.

  3. Cook slowly until the mixture is reduced by half.

  4. For an improvement, add the brandy a few minutes before finishing.

Bottle and store

  1. Put the catsup in small bottles, seal, and keep in a cool place.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,422 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes
Form the main body and bulk of the sauce once boiled and mashed.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the ketchup its tang and helps preserve it.
Salt
Seasons the sauce and helps draw out moisture and preserve it.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until reduced by half. Slow cooking concentrates the tomato solids and thickens the sauce evenly. Rushing with high heat can scorch the sugars and tomato solids on the bottom of the pot, giving a bitter, burnt taste.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sugar, pepper, allspice, celery, cinnamon, 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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