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Tomato Catsup.

A raw tomato condiment made with tomatoes, pepper, salt, celery, horseradish, onions, peppers, sugar, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and chop the tomatoes into medium pieces.

  2. Chop the celery and onions finely.

  3. Remove the seeds from the peppers and chop them.

  4. Dissolve the mustard in a little vinegar.

Combine and store

  1. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and stir well.

  2. Seal the mixture in pint cans and store in a cool place.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 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 bulk of the ketchup.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the ketchup its tang and helps preserve it.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes.
Onions
Add savory depth and aromatic flavor to the sauce.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that complements the tomatoes.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, celery, horseradish, sugar, cinnamon, mustard):

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, celery, horseradish, sugar, cinnamon, 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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