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Grape Catsup

A sweet and spicy grape sauce made with grapes, spices, sugar, and vinegar or wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Grape Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the grapes until the seeds separate.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Add 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, 1 teaspoon of mace, and ½ teaspoon of cloves for every quart of grapes.

  4. Stir in 1 pound of sugar for every quart.

  5. Thin to the desired consistency with sharp vinegar or wine.

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Grape + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,164 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  4. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Grapes
Provide the fruit pulp and juice that form the body and natural sweetness of the ketchup.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps thicken the mixture as it cooks down.
Ground cinnamon
Adds warm aroma and flavour to the spiced fruit base.
Ground mace
Adds a warm, aromatic flavour that complements the grapes.
Ground cloves
Adds strong aroma and warm spice flavour in small amounts.
Sharp vinegar or wine
Adds acidity to balance the sweetness and thins the ketchup to the desired consistency.

The step that matters

Thin to the desired consistency with sharp vinegar or wine.. Add the liquid gradually, because the mixture thickens as it cools and it is easy to thin too much. The sharp acid also balances the sugar, so the final flavour depends on how much is added.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against grape, cinnamon, clove, sugar, vinegar. 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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