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Sauce

Plum Catsup

A plum-based sauce made by simmering plums with sugar, vinegar, spices, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Plum Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pour hot water over the plums and cover closely.

  2. Steam the plums until tender.

Cook and seal

  1. Add brown sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, and cayenne to the plums.

  2. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes.

  3. Seal in cans and remove pits before serving.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Plums
Provide the bulk of the sauce and fruity flavour as they soften and break down.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and body, and thickens the sauce as moisture cooks off.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and sharpens the fruit flavour.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the sauce.
Cloves
Adds strong aromatic spice flavour that carries through the long simmer.
Cayenne pepper
Adds a gentle background heat that contrasts with the sweetness.

The step that matters

Simmer after adding the sugar and vinegar. Once the sugar and vinegar are in, the mixture simmers for 30 minutes. The sugar dissolves and the fruit breaks down into a thick sauce, so the heat must stay low enough that the sugar does not scorch on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the plum

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangefits about as well
  3. Lemonfits about as well
  4. Plumthe original

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