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Ripe Tomato Catsup

A homemade tomato ketchup made by simmering tomatoes, peppers, vinegar, spices, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Ripe Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Wash the tomatoes thoroughly.

  2. Combine the tomatoes and broken red peppers in a pot.

  3. Add 1 pint of strong vinegar and simmer for 3 to 4 hours.

  4. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

Season and finish

  1. Stir in 4 tablespoons of pepper, 4 tablespoons of salt, 6 tablespoons of ground mustard, 1 tablespoon of cloves, and 1 tablespoon of allspice.

  2. Add 1 pint more vinegar and heat until the mixture reaches the right consistency.

  3. Let it cool, then bottle 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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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
Form the bulk of the ketchup, providing body, sweetness and their natural pectin for thickening.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the finished ketchup.
Red peppers
Contribute sweetness, colour and a mild peppery background to the tomato base.
Ground mustard
Adds pungent, sharp flavour that balances the sweetness of the tomatoes.

The step that matters

Heating to the right consistency. Ketchup thickens as water evaporates and pectin in the tomatoes sets. Heating too briefly leaves it thin, while overheating can scorch the sugars and make it bitter.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, vinegar, mustard, clove, 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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