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Tomato Catsup

A tomato-based condiment made by boiling tomatoes with water, then seasoning with vinegar, sugar, salt, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Cut the tomatoes and add a little boiling water.

  2. Boil until tender, then strain through a wire sieve.

Season and thicken

  1. Add vinegar, sugar, and salt to taste.

  2. Place whole mixed spices in a muslin bag and boil with the mixture until thick enough.

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. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Tomato + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,063 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Tomato + sugartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,667 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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, flavour and pulp that the ketchup is built from.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the ketchup its sharp tang and helps preserve it.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity and tomato flavour.
Coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt')
Seasons the ketchup and sharpens the overall flavour.

The step that matters

Boiling until thick enough. Ketchup thickens only as water evaporates during simmering. Boiling too briefly leaves it thin and watery, while over-reducing makes it stiff and sticky, so check consistency as it cooks.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar. 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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