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Sauce

Tomato Catsup

A tomato-based condiment made with tomatoes, onions, vinegar, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut up the tomatoes and onions.

  2. Boil them until soft.

  3. Strain the mixture.

Cook

  1. Tie all spices in a bag and add to the pot.

  2. Boil everything together for 3 hours.

  3. Bottle and cork the catsup while hot.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the bulk of the sauce and provide its base flavor and liquid.
Onions
Add savory depth and body as they soften and break down during boiling.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the ketchup its tang and helps preserve it.
White sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity and tomato flavor.
Whole cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice flavor as they steep in the simmering sauce.

The step that matters

Boil everything together for 3 hours. A long, steady simmer thickens the sauce as water evaporates and concentrates the tomato solids and sugar. Stopping early leaves it thin and watery.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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