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Sauce

Lemon Catsup

A lemon-flavored condiment made with grated lemon rind, spices, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,279 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Lemon Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grate the rind of the lemons.

  2. Grind the mustard seed, turmeric, white pepper, cloves, mace, and cayenne together.

  3. In a bowl, combine the ground spices, sugar, horseradish, minced shallot, lemon juice, and salt.

Cook and rest

  1. Let the mixture stand for 3 hours in a cool place.

  2. Boil the mixture in a porcelain kettle for 30 minutes.

  3. Pour into a covered china or earthen vessel.

  4. Let it stand for 2 weeks, stirring well every day.

Finish

  1. Strain, bottle, and seal.

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. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Turmeric + clovetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,876 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Lemon + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Clove + peppertop 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

Lemons
Provide the bulk of the liquid and the bright acidity that defines the ketchup.
White mustard seed
Adds sharp pungency that mellows as the ketchup matures.
Sugar
Balances the sharp acidity and rounds out the overall flavour.
Horseradish
Contributes a pungent, sharp heat to the sauce.
Salt
Seasons the mixture and helps draw out flavour from the ingredients.

The step that matters

Let it stand for 2 weeks, stirring well every day.. The long resting period lets the flavours meld and mellow, and daily stirring keeps the mixture evenly blended so no part spoils or separates while it matures.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, mustard, turmeric, clove, mace, pepper, sugar):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, mustard, turmeric, clove, mace, pepper, 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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