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Tomato Catsup

A homemade tomato catsup made by boiling tomato juice or tomatoes with sugar, vinegar, salt, spices, and storing in a bottle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil and strain the tomato juice or tomatoes.

  2. Add sugar, vinegar, salt, cayenne pepper, cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

  3. Boil for one hour.

  4. Pour into a bottle for storage.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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, moisture and tomato flavour of the sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the finished sauce.
Ground cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice flavour to the sauce.
Ground cinnamon
Contributes warm, sweet aroma and flavour to the sauce.
Ground nutmeg
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour to the sauce.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vinegar, pepper, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, pepper, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg. 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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