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Ketchup, Tomato

A preserved tomato condiment made with tomatoes, salt, vinegar, spices, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ketchup, Tomato

Ingredients

Directions

Make the ketchup

  1. Boil the tomatoes until thoroughly cooked, then pass them through a colander.

  2. Stir the salt, vinegar, celery seed, brown sugar, mace, cinnamon, cayenne, and allspice into the tomato pulp.

  3. Pass the mixture through a sieve.

  4. Put the mixture into a pan and boil gently until reduced by half.

Bottle and store

  1. Bottle, cork, and store in a cool, dark place.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Celery + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,422 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the pulp and body that forms the ketchup.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the ketchup.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth that balances the acidity and spice.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the ketchup and helps draw out flavour from the tomatoes.
Celery seed
Contributes a savoury, aromatic background flavour.

The step that matters

Reducing the mixture by half. Gentle boiling evaporates water and concentrates the tomato pulp, sugar, and vinegar. Too little reduction leaves the ketchup thin and more prone to spoiling, while boiling hard risks scorching the sugars and tomato solids.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, vinegar, celery, sugar, cinnamon, pepper, allspice. 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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