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Sauce

Superior Catsup

A tomato-based sauce seasoned with cayenne pepper, allspice, cloves, and optional onions and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove 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 ↓

Superior Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Slice the tomatoes.

  2. Boil the sliced tomatoes for 15 minutes or until tender.

  3. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

  4. Add the cayenne pepper, salt, allspice, sugar, and cloves.

  5. Cook slowly in a porcelain-lined kettle until the quantity is reduced by half.

  6. If desired, add 3 chopped white onions and 1 cup of vinegar just before bottling.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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 and flavour of the catsup, cooked down to a thick sauce.
Salt
Seasons the sauce and sharpens the flavour of the other spices.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the tomatoes and vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the catsup its tang and helps keep it stable.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until reduced by half. Tomatoes contain a lot of water, and slow reduction concentrates their flavour and thickens the sauce. Cooking too fast can scorch the sugars and sticking solids on the bottom of the kettle, so a porcelain-lined pot and gentle heat help prevent burning.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, allspice, sugar, clove, vinegar):

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

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