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Red-pepper Catsup

A spicy tomato-free sauce made from red peppers, vinegar, onions, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Red-pepper Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine red peppers, vinegar, water, horseradish, and onions in a pot.

  2. Season with salt, black pepper, mustard seed, and spice.

  3. Boil for 10 minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture.

  5. Add brown sugar, celery seed, mace, and strong vinegar.

  6. Boil for 1 hour.

  7. Bottle the catsup.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  5. Horseradish + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together835 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

Red peppers
Provide the main body, flavor, and color of the ketchup.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and body as they soften during boiling.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the ketchup its tang and helps preserve it.
Horseradish
Contributes a sharp, pungent heat that gives the sauce its bite.

The step that matters

Boil for 1 hour. A long, gentle boil thickens the mixture as water evaporates and lets the flavors meld. Stopping early leaves the sauce thin and sharp-tasting.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, vinegar, horseradish, onion, mustard, sugar, celery):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, vinegar, horseradish, onion, mustard, sugar, celery. 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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