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Sauce

Tomato Catsup

A preserved tomato sauce made with tomatoes, salt, pepper, mustard, allspice, cloves, red peppers, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the ripe tomatoes and place them in a pot.

  2. Add salt, black pepper, mustard, allspice, cloves, and red peppers.

  3. Pour in enough vinegar to cover the mixture.

Cook and bottle

  1. Simmer for 3 to 4 hours.

  2. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

  3. Bottle the strained catsup and cork tightly.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes
Form the base of the ketchup, providing bulk, moisture and most of the flavour.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the ketchup its sharp tang and helps preserve it.
Salt
Seasons the sauce and draws out moisture, helping the flavours concentrate.
Red peppers
Add sweetness, body and a mild, fresh pepper flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer for 3 to 4 hours. Long, gentle simmering evaporates water and thickens the tomato mixture while concentrating its flavour. Stopping early leaves the sauce thin and watery, and too hard a boil can scorch the bottom of the pot.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, mustard, allspice, clove, 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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