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Sauce

Currant Catsup

A sweet and spicy sauce made from ripe red currants, vinegar, brown sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Currant Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the currants

  1. Stem the currants and place them in a stew pan with boiling water.

  2. Boil for 10 minutes, then strain through a colander.

Cook the sauce

  1. Add vinegar, brown sugar, mace, cloves, cinnamon, and mixed spice.

  2. Boil quickly for 30 minutes.

  3. Bottle and seal for use.

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. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Red currant + clovetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together128 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Red currants
Provide the main fruit body and natural pectin that thickens the sauce as it cooks.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the sauce.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and body, and helps preserve the sauce during long boiling.
Mace
Contributes warm aromatic flavour to the sauce.
Ground cloves
Contributes strong warm aromatic flavour to the sauce.
Ground cinnamon
Contributes sweet warm aromatic flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil quickly for 30 minutes. Long boiling reduces the water and concentrates the sugar, vinegar and fruit solids into a thick sauce. Too little reduction leaves it runny and less shelf-stable.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (red currant, vinegar, sugar, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against red currant, vinegar, sugar, clove, cinnamon. 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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