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Mustard Catsup

A tomato-based sauce with mustard, spices, and vinegar, thickened with cornstarch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mustard Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Place the tomatoes in the oven until hot, then squeeze them through a strainer.

Make the catsup

  1. Add the brown sugar, mustard, red peppers, cider vinegar, coarse sea salt, ginger, cloves, mace, and cayenne pepper to the strained tomatoes.

  2. Put the whole spices in a bag and add it to the mixture.

  3. Mix the cornstarch with the mustard to thicken it, then add to the pot.

  4. Cook the mixture for 1 hour, starting the timer when it begins to boil.

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. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 body, acidity and flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the vinegar and tomatoes.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and helps preserve the sauce.
Cornstarch
Thickens the sauce to a spreadable, catsup-like consistency as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture for 1 hour, starting the timer when it begins to boil. Cooking at a steady boil long enough reduces the water in the tomatoes and thickens the sauce. Starting the timer only at a full boil keeps the cooking time consistent, so the catsup neither stays thin nor scorches on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, mustard, pepper, cider, vinegar, ginger, clove):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, mustard, pepper, cider, vinegar, ginger, 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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