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Sauce

Grape Catsup

A sweet and spicy grape sauce made by stewing grapes, adding sugar, vinegar, salt, and spices, then boiling until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Grape Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Stew the grapes over a slow fire until soft.

  2. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

  3. Add sugar, vinegar, salt, cinnamon, allspice, red pepper, ground cloves, and nutmeg.

  4. Mix all ingredients together and boil until thick.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Grapes
Provide the main body, pectin, and fruity flavour of the ketchup.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, as it thickens during boiling, helps give the ketchup body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and sharpens the flavour.
Salt
Seasons the ketchup and enhances the flavour of the spices and fruit.

The step that matters

Boil until thick. Boiling evaporates water and concentrates the sugar and fruit solids, which is what thickens the ketchup. Stopping too early leaves it thin and watery, while boiling too long can scorch the sugars on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the grape

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, allspice, pepper, clove, nutmeg. 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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