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Pepper Catsup

A spicy pepper-based catsup made with red bell peppers, vinegar, spices, onions, salt, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Pepper Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Seed the bell peppers and combine them with the vinegar in a pot.

  2. Boil the mixture until you can mash the pulp through a sieve.

  3. Season the strained mixture with cloves, mace, spice, onions, coarse sea salt, and sugar.

  4. Boil again until the catsup reaches the desired consistency.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Clove + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Red bell peppers
Provide the main pulp and sweet pepper flavour that forms the body of the ketchup.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the ketchup.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Boil again until the desired consistency. Reducing by boiling evaporates water and thickens the mixture. Stopping too early leaves it thin, while boiling too long can make it overly thick and concentrated, so check the texture as it cooks.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

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