Name: Tomato Catsup
Ingredients: 1 can tomato juice or 1 can tomatoes; ½ cup sugar; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 cup vinegar; ⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper; 1 tablespoon ground cloves; 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon; 1 tablespoon ground nutmeg

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Boil and strain the tomato juice or tomatoes.
Add sugar, salt, vinegar, cayenne pepper, cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
Boil for one hour.
Pour into a bottle 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.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,686 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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 tomato flavour of the ketchup.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and balances the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that gives the ketchup its tang and helps preserve it.
Ground cloves: Contribute warm, aromatic spice flavour to the sauce.

Swap the tomato

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

Capsicumfits better
Mustardfits better
Sweet potatofits better
Tomatothe original

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