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Another Tomata Catsup

A tomato-based sauce made by baking tomatoes, adding spices, boiling, straining, and bottling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Another Tomata Catsup

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the juice

  1. Place the ripe tomatoes in a jar and bake in a cool oven at 300°F (150°C) until soft enough to press out the juice.

  2. For every gallon of juice, add ¼ pound of black pepper, ¼ pound of allspice, 2 ounces of ginger, 1 head of garlic, and a handful of coarse sea salt.

Cook and strain

  1. Boil all ingredients together, skimming off any scum that rises.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Let it cool completely.

Bottle and seal

  1. Bottle the catsup.

  2. Seal the corks.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Ginger + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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 juice and body that make up the sauce.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, aromatic bite to the sauce.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour.
Ginger
Adds warm, fresh aroma and a slight bite.
Garlic
Adds sharp aroma and savoury depth.

The step that matters

Skim the scum while boiling. Scum that rises during boiling is made of proteins and impurities. Removing it keeps the sauce clear and smooth and stops off-flavours from carrying through.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Eggplantfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, allspice, ginger, garlic. 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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