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Tomato Catsup

A tomato sauce made by simmering tomatoes, salt, pepper, mustard, spices, red peppers, and vinegar, then straining and bottling.

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

  1. Combine the tomatoes, salt, ground pepper, mustard, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, red peppers, and vinegar in a large pot.

  2. Simmer the mixture slowly for 3 to 4 hours.

Strain and bottle

  1. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

  2. Bottle the catsup and cork it 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. 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

Ripe tomatoes
Form the bulk of the sauce and, as they cook down, provide body and thickness.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the cooked tomatoes.
Red peppers
Contribute sweet, fresh pepper flavor and soft body as they break down during cooking.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly for 3 to 4 hours. Long, gentle cooking evaporates water and concentrates the tomatoes into a thick, rich sauce. Heat that is too high can scorch the sugars on the bottom of the pot and give the ketchup a burnt taste.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, mustard, allspice, clove, 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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