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Fine Red Catsup

A homemade tomato-based condiment seasoned with red pepper, mustard, salt, sugar, vinegar, allspice, cloves, and black pepper.

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

Fine Red Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Wash and quarter the tomatoes.

  2. Place them in a porcelain-lined kettle and boil in their own juice until soft, about 1 hour.

  3. Strain through a fine sieve to remove the seeds.

Make the ketchup

  1. Add red pepper, mustard, salt, sugar, and vinegar.

  2. Place black pepper, cloves, and allspice in a small muslin bag and add it to the mixture.

  3. Boil for 4 hours, stirring occasionally to prevent burning.

  4. Let cool and bottle.

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. 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

Ripe tomatoes
Provide the main body and flavor base of the ketchup as they cook down.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the ketchup its tang and helps keep it stable.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the ketchup and enhances the other flavors.

The step that matters

Stirring during the long boil. The mixture is thick and sugary, so it can scorch on the bottom of the kettle during the 4-hour boil. Regular stirring spreads the heat evenly and prevents burnt flavors.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, mustard, sugar, vinegar, allspice, 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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