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Pontac Catsup for Fisii

A preserved sauce of elderberries, tomatoes, and spices for fish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pontac Catsup for Fisii

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.

Make the elderberry vinegar

  1. Pour ¾ pint of boiling vinegar over 1 pint of elderberries and let it stand in a 300 °F (150 °C) oven overnight.

  2. Strain the liquid without pressure and boil it for 5 minutes with salt, ginger, mace, peppercorns, cloves, and shallots.

  3. Bottle the mixture with the spices when it is completely cool.

Make the tomato base

  1. Cut ½ peck of tomatoes into quarters and sprinkle with ½ pound of salt.

  2. The next day, drain the tomatoes through a fine sieve into a saucepan and boil for 1 hour with capsicums and shallots.

  3. Add the pulped tomatoes and boil the whole mixture for an additional 30 minutes.

Bottle and seal

  1. Fill warm, clean bottles with the hot catsup, cork them, and seal the necks with melted resin or cement.

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. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Tomato + capsicumtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,520 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Clove + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Shallot + capsicumtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Elderberries
Provide the main fruity flavour and colour of the catsup.
Salt
Draws moisture out of the tomatoes and seasons the catsup.
Tomatoes
Form the bulk of the pulp and give the catsup its body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the catsup.
Shallots
Add savoury depth to the spiced liquid and the boiled mixture.

The step that matters

Draining the salted tomatoes through a fine sieve. Salting draws out water, and draining it off before boiling keeps the catsup from becoming watery. Letting the tomatoes rest overnight gives the salt time to work through the pulp, so the final catsup is thicker and more concentrated.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, ginger, clove, shallot, tomato, capsicum):

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, ginger, clove, shallot, tomato, capsicum. 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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