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Tomato Catsup

A preserved tomato sauce made with tomatoes, vinegar, salt, spices, and mustard seed, boiled and reduced.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice 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

  1. Boil the tomatoes until soft, then squeeze through a wire sieve.

  2. Add vinegar, salt, cloves, allspice (tied in a cloth), cayenne pepper, black pepper, and mustard seed. Mix together and boil until reduced by half.

  3. Bottle the catsup.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Allspice + peppertop 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
Provide the main body and flavor base of the ketchup once cooked and sieved.
Pure vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the ketchup its sharp tang and helps preserve it.
Salt
Seasons the ketchup and enhances the flavor of the tomatoes and spices.
Whole cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice notes to the finished sauce.
Whole allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor; tied in a cloth so it can be removed.
Cayenne pepper
Adds heat and pungency to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil until reduced by half. Simmering evaporates water, concentrating the tomato solids and spices into a thicker, more flavorful sauce. Stopping early leaves it thin and watery, while over-reducing can scorch the sugars at the bottom of the pan.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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