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Damson Catsup

A thickened sauce made from damsons, sugar, water, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Damson Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pulp

  1. Combine damsons and water in a pan.

  2. Stir constantly to prevent boiling.

  3. Rub the pulp through a sieve.

  4. Return the pulp to the pan.

Cook and bottle

  1. Add sugar and spices. Stir well.

  2. Simmer until thickens.

  3. Add grated lemon rind if desired.

  4. Bottle while hot.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 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

Damsons
Provide the fruit pulp that forms the body and tart flavour of the ketchup.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps thicken the ketchup as it cooks down.

The step that matters

Stir constantly to prevent boiling. Thick fruit pulp scorches on the base of the pan easily, and scorched sugars give a burnt taste. Constant stirring keeps the mixture moving and evenly heated.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, clove, allspice, pepper, cinnamon, ginger):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangefits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Figfits less well

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