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Tomato Catsup

A tomato-based condiment made by boiling tomatoes, seasoning with spices, vinegar, and sugar, then bottling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Select well ripened tomatoes and slice them, removing any defective parts.

  2. Boil the tomatoes for 1 to 2 hours until soft, then strain to extract all the pulp.

Make the ketchup

  1. To the strained tomato juice, add the salt, red pepper, mustard, and black pepper.

  2. Simmer the cinnamon, allspice, and cloves with the vinegar for 1 hour, then strain into the tomato juice.

  3. Add the sugar, mix well, then bottle and seal tightly.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Well ripened tomatoes
Provide the main body, pulp and tomato flavour of the ketchup.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the ketchup its tang and helps preserve it.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity and sharpness of the spices.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that rounds out the tomato base.

The step that matters

Boil the tomatoes until fully soft, then strain. Tomatoes that are not cooked long enough stay firm and yield little pulp, leaving a thin, chunky texture. Thorough cooking breaks down the cell walls so straining can extract a smooth pulp.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, mustard, cinnamon, allspice, clove, vinegar, sugar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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