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Tomato Catsup

A thick tomato condiment made by stewing tomatoes, simmering with spices, vinegar, and sugar, then 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

Make the sauce

  1. Stew the ripe tomatoes and strain through a colander to remove seeds and chunky portions until you have 6 quarts.

  2. Simmer the strained tomatoes down to 3 quarts.

  3. Add the salt, black pepper, ginger, cloves, cayenne, cinnamon, vinegar, and sugar.

  4. Cook slowly for at least 30 minutes to incorporate the spices.

Bottle

  1. Bottle the catsup once it reaches the desired consistency.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  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

Ripe tomatoes
Provide the main body, flavour and liquid that reduces into the thick sauce.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps preserve the sauce.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity and tomato tang.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the sauce and sharpens the other flavours.

The step that matters

Simmering the tomatoes down to 3 quarts. Tomatoes are mostly water, so long gentle simmering evaporates liquid and concentrates flavour and body. Stopping too early leaves a thin sauce, while over-reducing can scorch the bottom of the pot.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, ginger, clove, cinnamon, cider, vinegar, sugar. 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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