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Tomato Catsup. No. I

A homemade tomato ketchup made with tomato pulp, onion, spices, sugar, salt, mustard, and vinegar.

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

Tomato Catsup. No. I

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Combine tomato pulp and chopped onion in a pot. Add salt and brown sugar.

  2. Boil until thick.

  3. Strain through a sieve, discarding seeds, then return to the stove.

Season and finish

  1. Add mustard, allspice, black pepper, cinnamon, ground cloves, cayenne pepper, nutmeg, and vinegar.

  2. Boil until it thickens enough to run slowly from a bottle.

  3. Seal in large-mouthed bottles while hot for long storage.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tomato pulp
Forms the base of the sauce and supplies most of its body and flavor.
Onion
Adds savory depth and aroma as it cooks down into the sauce.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the acidity of the tomatoes and vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens flavor and helps preserve the finished ketchup.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that complements the tomato and spices.

The step that matters

Boil until it thickens enough to run slowly from a bottle. Tomato sauce thickens mainly through evaporation as water boils off. Stopping too early leaves it thin and watery, while over-boiling makes it pasty and can scorch on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

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