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Tomato Catsup

A preserved tomato sauce made by boiling tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic, and spices, then sweetened and bottled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, and garlic for one hour.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Add vinegar, brown sugar, and salt.

  4. Boil for one hour.

  5. Add ground cloves, allspice, cinnamon, ginger, and whole celery seed in a bag if desired.

  6. Boil for another half hour.

  7. Bottle the catsup and seal with sealing wax.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 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

Tomatoes
Form the bulk of the sauce and provide its main body and flavor.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the finished sauce.
Light brown sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes.
Onions
Contribute savory depth and body as they soften during the long boil.
Garlic
Adds aromatic pungency that mellows during extended cooking.

The step that matters

Boil for one hour after adding vinegar, sugar, and salt. Long simmering evaporates water and concentrates the sauce, so it thickens gradually. Stopping early leaves it thin and watery, while the acid and sugar need time to blend into the tomato base.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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