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Tomato Catsup

A sweet and tangy tomato sauce made with tomatoes, sugar, vinegar, spices, and onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Scald the tomatoes and remove the skin.

  2. Break the tomatoes into pieces and place them in a boiler.

  3. Cook until thoroughly soft, then strain through a fine sieve.

Season and bottle

  1. Add the remaining ingredients to the strained tomatoes.

  2. Once cool, bottle, cork, and tie the bottles.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the bulk of the sauce and provide its main body and flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes.
Vinegar
Adds acidity, which sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the sauce.
Onions
Add savory depth and aroma to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook until thoroughly soft, then strain through a fine sieve. Cooking the tomatoes fully breaks down their cell walls so the pulp releases its liquid and pectin. Straining through a fine sieve then removes skins and seeds, giving the smooth, uniform texture that ketchup needs.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

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