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Grape Catsup

A sweet and spicy grape-based condiment made by boiling grapes with sugar, vinegar, spices, and salt.

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 ↓

Grape Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pulp

  1. Boil the grapes and strain through a sieve to remove seeds and skins.

Cook and bottle

  1. Add sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, pepper, cloves, and salt to the strained grapes.

  2. Boil the mixture until thick.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Grape + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,164 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  4. Cinnamon + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Grapes
Provide the fruit base and bulk, which becomes the ketchup's body once strained and cooked.
Sugar
Sweetens the ketchup and, as water evaporates, helps it thicken.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the ketchup its tang and helps it keep.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until thick. As water evaporates, the sugar and fruit concentrate and the mixture thickens. Stopping too early leaves it thin and watery, while cooking too long can scorch the sugars and leave it stiff once cool.

Swap the grape

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Cherryfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, pepper, 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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