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Tomato Catchup

A preserved tomato condiment made with tomatoes, vinegar, spices, and glucose.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Tomato Catchup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Wash and cut the tomatoes into quarters.

  2. Place them in a clean saucepan and cook until reduced by half.

  3. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve and return it to the fire.

Season and simmer

  1. Add elder vinegar, ground cloves, ground allspice, ground white pepper, and ground cinnamon.

  2. Simmer for four hours.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in confectioners' glucose.

Bottle and store

  1. Bottle while hot, corking tightly.

  2. Store in a cool place.

  3. Optionally, add salicylic acid to prevent fermentation.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Tomato + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,348 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes
Form the bulk of the sauce and supply its base flavour and body once reduced.
Elder vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the ketchup its tang and helps preserve it.
Confectioners' glucose
Adds sweetness and body, softening the acidity and giving a smoother texture.
Ground cloves
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour to the sauce.
Ground allspice
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour to the sauce.
Ground cinnamon
Contributes warm, sweet aromatic notes to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer after adding the vinegar and spices. Long simmering lets the sauce thicken by evaporation and blends the acid and spices together. Stopping early leaves it thin and sharp-tasting.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, vinegar, clove, allspice, cinnamon. 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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