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Sauce

Grape Catsup

A fermented grape sauce seasoned with spices and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Grape Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pulp

  1. Stem the grapes and place them in a pot with enough water to prevent burning.

  2. Boil gently, then rub the mixture through a colander to remove skins and seeds.

Season and cook

  1. To each quart of pulp, add ½ pint vinegar, 1 tablespoon salt, 1 teaspoon each of nutmeg, ginger, and cloves, ½ teaspoon each of pepper and allspice, and ¼ minced red pepper.

  2. Return to the fire and cook for 15 minutes.

  3. Skim thoroughly, then bottle and seal.

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. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 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

Wild grapes
Provide the main fruit pulp, which forms the body and bulk of the ketchup.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the ketchup its tang and helps preserve it.
Salt
Seasons the pulp and sharpens the overall flavor.

The step that matters

Skim thoroughly. Foam and fine solids rise to the surface while the pulp cooks. Removing them leaves a smoother, clearer ketchup that keeps better in the bottle.

Swap the grape

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, nutmeg, ginger, clove, pepper, allspice):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, nutmeg, ginger, clove, pepper, 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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