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Tomato Catsup

A thick tomato condiment made by stewing tomatoes with spices and vinegar, then strained and bottled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and mustard 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 ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the ketchup

  1. Combine the tomatoes, salt, black pepper, allspice, ground mustard, red pepper, and vinegar in a pot.

  2. Stew the mixture slowly for 3 hours.

  3. Strain the liquid and simmer it down to ½ gallon.

Bottle

  1. Bottle the hot catsup and cork it tightly.

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

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

  4. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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 sweet tomato flavor that the ketchup is built on.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the finished ketchup.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, aromatic heat that rounds out the tomato flavor.
Ground mustard
Adds pungent, sharp flavor that balances the sweetness of the tomatoes.

The step that matters

Simmer down after straining. Long, slow simmering evaporates water and concentrates the tomato solids, so the sauce thickens and its flavors deepen. Stopping early leaves the ketchup thin and watery.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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