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Sauce

Grape Catsup

A sweet and spicy grape-based condiment made by stewing grapes, adding sugar, vinegar, and spices, then boiling until thickened.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

  1. Stew the grapes over low heat until soft.

  2. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

  3. Add the sugar, vinegar, and spices to the strained grapes.

  4. Boil the mixture until it thickens.

  5. Bottle the catsup.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Allspice + peppertop 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

Grapes
Provide the main body, flavour and natural pectin that help the ketchup thicken.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, as it concentrates during boiling, body and preservation.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and helps keep the ketchup stable.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aromatic flavour to the spiced sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until it thickens. Boiling evaporates water and concentrates the sugar and grape solids, so the sauce thickens. Stopping too early leaves it thin and more prone to spoiling, while overcooking can make it sticky and dark.

Swap the grape

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

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

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