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Sauce

Tomato Catsup

A thick tomato sauce seasoned with spices and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Combine the chopped tomatoes, onion, salt, and brown sugar in a large pot.

  2. Boil the mixture until it thickens.

  3. Press the thickened mixture through a sieve.

Season and finish

  1. Return the pulp to the pot and add the dry mustard, allspice, black pepper, cinnamon, ground cloves, grated nutmeg, cayenne pepper, and vinegar.

  2. Boil again until thick.

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. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Chopped tomatoes
Form the main body of the ketchup and supply its base flavor and liquid to reduce.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the acidity of the tomatoes and vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the ketchup its tang and helps preserve it.
Onion
Contributes savory depth and aroma to the tomato base.

The step that matters

Boil again until thick. Reducing the mixture by boiling evaporates water and concentrates the pulp, so the ketchup thickens. Stopping too early leaves it thin and watery, while over-reducing can scorch the sugars on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

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