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Tomato Catsup

A tomato-based condiment made with tomatoes, vinegar, salt, pepper, mustard seed, cayenne, cloves, and allspice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare 1 gallon of tomatoes by peeling, boiling, and straining them.

  2. In a large pot, combine the strained tomatoes with 1 pint of vinegar.

  3. Add 9 tablespoons of salt, 3 tablespoons of black pepper, 3 tablespoons of ground mustard seed, 1 teaspoon of Cayenne pepper, ½ teaspoon of cloves, and ½ teaspoon of allspice.

Cook

  1. Stir well and bring the mixture to a boil.

  2. Reduce heat and simmer until thickened to your 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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body, moisture, and bulk that the ketchup thickens through simmering.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and helps preserve the sauce.
Salt
Seasons the sauce and draws out flavor from the tomatoes.
Mustard seed
Contributes pungent, sharp flavor and a little body to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmering to the desired thickness. Tomato sauce thickens slowly as water evaporates during a gentle simmer. Simmering too hard can scorch the sugars and solids on the bottom of the pot, while stopping too early leaves the ketchup thin.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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