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Uncooked Tomato Catsup

A raw tomato ketchup made by blending tomatoes, celery, onion, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice 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 ↓

Uncooked Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and chop the tomatoes, then hang them in a bag to drain for 34 hours.

  2. Mix the drained tomatoes with celery and onion thoroughly.

Season and can

  1. Add salt, sugar, mustard seed, ground cinnamon, ground allspice, and chopped red peppers, then mix well.

  2. Cover with cider vinegar and put in self-sealing cans.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 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 body, sweetness and liquid that become the ketchup.
Celery
Adds savory, vegetal flavor and body to the mixture.
Onion
Adds savory depth and aroma as the base flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that gives tang and helps preserve the ketchup.
Mustard seed
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that cuts through the sweetness.

The step that matters

Draining the tomatoes. Tomatoes hold a lot of water. Draining them well keeps the ketchup thick rather than thin and watery, and concentrates the tomato flavor.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, celery, sugar, mustard, cinnamon, 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.

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