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Sauce

Plum Catsup

A sweet plum preserve made with vinegar and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and plum work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 655 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Plum Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine vinegar, sugar, and plums in a large pot.

  2. Boil the mixture well, then strain it through a colander.

  3. Return the strained mixture to the heat and add spices to taste.

  4. Boil until the mixture thickens.

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. Vinegar + plumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together655 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  2. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + plumtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,313 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Plums
Provide the main fruit body, pectin, and flavor that form the ketchup's base.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to thickening and preservation as the mixture reduces.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and helps keep the ketchup stable.

The step that matters

Boil until the mixture thickens. Plums and sugar must reduce long enough for pectin and sugar concentration to set the sauce. Stopping early leaves it thin, while overcooking can scorch the sugars on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the plum

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits about as well
  3. Pineapplefits about as well
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, 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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