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Tomato Catsup

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove 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

  1. Wash and chop the tomatoes.

Cook

  1. In a large pot, combine the tomatoes, vinegar, salt, black pepper, allspice, red pepper, cloves, mustard, garlic, onions, and brown sugar.

  2. Make sure to stir the mustard into the vinegar first, then add all the spices and peppers.

  3. Cook over medium heat for 3 hours, stirring steadily.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 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

Tomatoes
Form the bulk of the ketchup and provide its main body and flavor.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives ketchup its tang and helps preserve it.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity and spices.
Onions
Contribute savory depth and body as they cook down with the tomatoes.
Garlic
Adds aromatic pungency that mellows during long cooking.

The step that matters

Stir steadily during the 3-hour cook. Tomato mixtures are thick and sugary, so they scorch easily on the bottom of the pot. Frequent stirring over medium heat prevents sticking and burning, which would give the ketchup a bitter, dark taste.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, allspice, clove, mustard, garlic, onion. 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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