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Tomato Catsup

A preserved tomato sauce made with tomatoes, vinegar, sugar, spices, and mustard, boiled to a thick honey consistency.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the tomatoes

  1. Split the tomatoes and place them in a large pot without any water.

  2. Boil the tomatoes until fully cooked, stirring often to prevent burning.

Strain

  1. Strain the mixture through a colander, then through a fine sieve to extract as much pulp as possible.

  2. Wash the pot.

Make the ketchup

  1. Return the strained mixture to the heat.

  2. Add all the ingredients.

  3. Boil until the mixture reaches the consistency of thick honey.

  4. Set aside until the next day.

  5. If any watery substance forms on top, boil again.

  6. If not, bottle the catsup.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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, pulp and flavour of the ketchup.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the ketchup.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity and contributes to thickness as the mixture reduces.
Cloves
Adds warm aromatic flavour to the sauce.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aromatic flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boiling to thick honey consistency. Boiling drives off water and concentrates the tomato solids and sugar, so the sauce thickens. Stopping too early leaves it watery, which is why the next-day check for watery liquid matters.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, vinegar, sugar, pepper, mustard, clove, celery):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, vinegar, sugar, pepper, mustard, clove, celery. 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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