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Ripe Tomato Catsup

A tomato-based condiment made with tomatoes, vinegar, spices, onions, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,928 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Ripe Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Peel and boil the tomatoes briefly.

  2. Rub the tomatoes through a sieve to extract the juice.

Make the ketchup

  1. In a large pot, combine the tomato juice, apple vinegar, salt, red pepper, black pepper, mustard seed, allspice, chopped onions, and brown sugar.

  2. Boil the mixture until it reaches your desired thickness.

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body, flavor and liquid that the ketchup is built on.
Apple vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the finished ketchup.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth, and balances the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes.
Onions
Add savory base flavor and body as they soften into the sauce.
White mustard seed
Contributes a sharp, pungent aroma and background bite.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until it reaches your desired thickness. Thickening happens as water evaporates and the tomato solids concentrate. Stopping too early leaves a thin sauce, while boiling too long makes it dense and can scorch on the bottom of the pot, so stir often near the end.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, vinegar, pepper, mustard, allspice, onion, 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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