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Catsups and Sauces

A spiced fruit sauce made from fruit pulp, sugar, mace, cinnamon, cloves, peppercorns, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Catsups and Sauces

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pulp

  1. Sieve the fruit pulp with a fine wire sieve or strainer.

  2. Combine the pulp, sugar, mace, cinnamon, cloves, and peppercorns in a pot.

Cook and finish

  1. Boil the mixture down by one-third, then skim out the spices.

  2. Add sugar and boil until thick.

  3. Adjust the consistency with vinegar, then bottle for use.

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. Plum + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Plum + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together446 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 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

Fruit pulp
Provides the main body, flavor, and natural fruit acidity of the sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, as it thickens with boiling, helps give the sauce its body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and adjusts the final consistency.

The step that matters

Boiling down the mixture. Reducing the pulp by one-third concentrates flavor and begins thickening. Boiling too briskly or too long can scorch the sugar and fruit on the bottom of the pot, so stir and watch closely.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against plum, sugar, cinnamon, clove, 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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