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Tomato Catsup

A tomato-based sauce made by boiling tomato juice with spices, sugar, and vinegar.

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 ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the tomato juice for four hours.

  2. Add salt, cinnamon, mustard, ginger, red pepper, nutmeg, brown sugar, and vinegar.

  3. Stir well and continue to boil for the desired thickness.

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 + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body, which thickens as water evaporates during long boiling.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the ketchup its sharp tang and balances the sweetness.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and deeper flavor that offsets the acidity of the tomatoes and vinegar.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes to the sauce.
Mustard
Adds a sharp, pungent flavor that supports the tang of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Stir well while boiling to thickness. Thick tomato sauce sits heavily on the bottom of the pot and can scorch if not stirred, giving a burnt taste. Regular stirring keeps the sauce even while water evaporates and it thickens.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, mustard, ginger, pepper, nutmeg, sugar, 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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