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Red Pepper Catchup

A fermented pepper condiment made with vinegar, water, horseradish, onions, and garlic.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Red Pepper Catchup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Remove stems and seeds from the peppers.

  2. In a large pot, combine the peppers, vinegar, water, horseradish, onions, and garlic.

  3. Boil until the onions are soft.

Strain and bottle

  1. Strain the mixture and let it cool.

  2. Once cool, bottle the catchup.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Horseradish + garlictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together719 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Horseradish + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Pepper + horseradishtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Peppers
Provide the main body and vegetable flavor of the ketchup as they cook down.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the cooked vegetables.
Onions
Soften during boiling, adding body and mild sweetness to the mixture.
Horseradish
Contributes a sharp, pungent aroma and heat.
Garlic
Adds aroma and savory depth to the cooked mixture.

The step that matters

Boil until the onions are soft. Onions must fully soften so they break down and blend smoothly when straining. Undercooked onions leave fibrous pieces and a sharp raw taste in the finished ketchup.

Swap the horseradish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, vinegar, onion, garlic):

  1. Broccolifits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Horseradishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, vinegar, onion, garlic. 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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