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Tomato Catsup

A preserved tomato sauce made by boiling tomatoes with spices, sugar, vinegar, and onions, then bottling.

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

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Wipe the tomatoes with a damp cloth and slice them into a large pot.

  2. Pour 3 pints of water over the tomatoes and add the sliced onions and peach leaves.

  3. Boil until the tomatoes are soft, about 1 to 2 hours.

  4. Strain the mixture through a coarse sieve and return the liquid to the pot.

Make the ketchup

  1. Add the ground spices, salt, sugar, and vinegar to the liquid and mix well.

  2. Set the pot over the fire and boil slowly for 2 hours, stirring almost constantly to prevent burning.

  3. Add cayenne pepper to taste.

Bottle and store

  1. Fill bottles with the catsup and seal them.

  2. Store in a cool, dry place.

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. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 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, pulp and flavour of the ketchup.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the acidity of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the ketchup.
White onions
Add savoury depth and body to the cooked tomato base.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that complements the spices.

The step that matters

Long slow boil with constant stirring. Thick sugar-rich tomato mixtures scorch easily on the bottom of the pot, which gives a burnt taste. Stirring almost constantly and keeping the heat low lets the liquid reduce evenly and thicken without burning.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (allspice, onion, clove, sugar, mustard, vinegar, nutmeg):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against allspice, onion, clove, sugar, mustard, vinegar, nutmeg. 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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