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Sauce

Green-tomato Catsup

A preserved sauce made from green tomatoes, cabbage, onions, and spices, boiled for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Green-tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the green tomatoes, cabbage, onions, and red pepper.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and let stand overnight.

Cook

  1. Drain the mixture and add mustard, ginger, black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, horseradish, mace, and brown sugar.

  2. Pour the mixture into a preserve kettle and boil for 4 hours until thick and smooth.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 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. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide the main body and tart flavor of the ketchup.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and mild body to the mixture as it cooks down.
Onions
Contribute savory depth and aroma as they soften during cooking.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the green tomatoes.
Red pepper
Adds heat and fresh pepper flavor to the ketchup.

The step that matters

Boil for 4 hours until thick and smooth. Long, steady boiling evaporates water so the mixture thickens into a spreadable ketchup. Too little time leaves it thin and watery, while overheating can scorch the sugars on the bottom of the kettle, so it needs regular stirring.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, onion, pepper, mustard, ginger, cinnamon, clove):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, onion, pepper, mustard, ginger, cinnamon, clove. 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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