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Tomato Catsup

A preserved tomato sauce made by boiling tomatoes, seasoning, and reducing to a thick, sweetened condiment.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,928 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Wash and boil the tomatoes until soft.

  2. Pass the tomatoes through a colander, mashing until they stop dripping. You should have about 11 quarts of juice.

  3. Put the juice in a china-lined kettle.

Cook the ketchup

  1. Add salt, allspice, ground mustard, black pepper, and cayenne.

  2. Boil for 2 hours; for a thicker catsup, boil for 3 to 4 hours.

Bottle and rest

  1. Bottle the catsup, adding a little sweet oil on top to exclude air.

  2. Seal the bottles and let it sit for 2 weeks before using.

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. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  4. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,482 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body, pulp and flavour of the ketchup once cooked down.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the ketchup and helps draw moisture out during long boiling.
Ground mustard
Adds pungent, sharp flavour that balances the sweetness of the tomatoes.
Cayenne
Adds gentle heat that lifts the overall spice profile.

The step that matters

Boiling time. Boiling for 2 hours gives a thinner catsup, while 3 to 4 hours thickens it further as water evaporates and the tomato pulp reduces. Stopping early leaves the sauce runny, so check consistency before bottling.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (allspice, mustard, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against allspice, mustard, pepper. 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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