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Tomato Catsup

A fermented tomato sauce spiced with cloves, pepper, nutmeg, cayenne, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Scald the ripe tomatoes until the skins come off.

  2. Cover the tomatoes with coarse sea salt and let them stand for a day.

  3. Strain the tomatoes thoroughly.

Season and cook

  1. For every 2 quarts of liquid, add 3 ounces of cloves, 2 ounces of black pepper, 2 nutmegs, a pinch of cayenne pepper, and salt to taste.

  2. Boil the mixture for 30 minutes.

  3. Let it cool.

Finish

  1. Add 1 pint of best vinegar to the cooled mixture.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the ketchup.
Cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice notes to the sauce.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, aromatic heat that balances the tomato.
Nutmeg
Adds a warm, sweet aroma to the spice blend.

The step that matters

Let it cool before adding the vinegar. Vinegar is volatile and its sharp acidic aroma and flavor fade when boiled, so adding it after the mixture has cooled keeps its bright tang in the finished ketchup.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, pepper, nutmeg, 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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