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Apple Catsup

A sweet and spicy apple condiment made by stewing apples with sugar, spices, onions, salt, and vinegar.

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 ↓

Apple Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Stew the apples in as little water as possible until soft.

  2. Pass the cooked apples through a sieve to remove skins.

Cook the ketchup

  1. In a pot, combine the sifted apples, sugar, pepper, cloves, mustard, cinnamon, onions, salt, and vinegar.

  2. Place the pot over the fire and boil for one hour.

  3. Bottle the catsup while hot and seal tightly.

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. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  5. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 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

Apples
Provide the bulk and natural pectin that thickens the sauce as it cooks down.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the vinegar and apples.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the ketchup its tang and helps preserve it.
Onions
Add savory depth and body as they soften into the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil for one hour. The long simmer evaporates water and concentrates the sauce, so it thickens to a spreadable consistency. Stopping early leaves it thin and more prone to spoiling.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, pepper, clove, mustard, cinnamon, 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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