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Green Tomato Catsup

A thick green tomato ketchup made with vinegar, sugar, spices, and peppers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Green Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the tomatoes and peppers.

  2. Pack them in layers with coarse sea salt and place in colanders to drain overnight.

  3. The next morning, press them dry and place in a kettle with the other ingredients.

Cook and store

  1. Boil everything together until thick, then add 1 quart of cold vinegar.

  2. Cover tightly and store; it will keep for years.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the ketchup and its body as they break down during boiling.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the ketchup its tang and helps preserve it.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity and vinegar sharpness.
Dry mustard
Adds a sharp, pungent flavour that rounds out the spiced profile.

The step that matters

Draining the salted tomatoes overnight. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes; pressing them dry before cooking removes excess liquid so the ketchup thickens properly instead of staying thin and watery.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, vinegar, sugar, mustard, allspice, ginger, cinnamon):

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

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