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Sauce

Tomata Catsup

A tomato-based condiment made by simmering tomatoes with salt, anchovies, shallots, spices, and cochineal, then bottling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomata Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Mash the tomatoes and add the salt.

  2. Press out the juice.

  3. To each quart of juice, add the anchovies, shallots, and black pepper.

  4. Simmer the mixture for 15 minutes.

  5. Strain it through a sieve.

Season and bottle

  1. Add the mace, allspice, ginger, nutmeg, and cochineal.

  2. Simmer for another 20 minutes and strain through a bag.

  3. When cold, bottle the catsup.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Shallot + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the liquid and the main tomato flavour of the sauce.
Anchovies
Add savoury depth (umami) that rounds out the sweetness and acidity of the tomatoes.
Shallots
Contribute a mild onion-like aroma and savoury background flavour.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the tomatoes and seasons the sauce throughout.
Cochineal
Adds a red colour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer the mixture for 15 minutes. Simmering after the juice is pressed and seasoned lets the sauce reduce and thicken slightly while the flavours meld. Simmering too briefly leaves it thin and watery, while overcooking can dull the fresh tomato flavour.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, pepper, mace, allspice, ginger, nutmeg):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, pepper, mace, allspice, ginger, 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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