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Tomato Catsup

A tomato-based condiment made by cooking tomatoes, onions, peppers, and spices with vinegar and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the base

  1. Cook the tomatoes, onions, and green peppers until soft, about 1 hour.

  2. Return to the stove and add the vinegar.

Infuse the spices

  1. Put the spices in a bag and cook slowly for 2 to 3 hours.

  2. Remove the spice bag and squeeze to extract the spices.

  3. Add the spice extract to the tomato mixture.

Bottle

  1. 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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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
Provides the bulk, body and moisture that make up the ketchup.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the sauce.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and tomatoes with sweetness.
Onions
Softens into the sauce, adding savoury depth to the base.
White mustard seed
Contributes a sharp, pungent aroma as part of the spice blend.
Whole cloves
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook the spices slowly in the bag. Spice flavour is released gradually into the liquid, so a slow, long simmer gives a fuller taste. Rushing it leaves the spices weak and the sauce flat. Squeezing the bag then transfers the extracted oils and flavour into the tomato mixture.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

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