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Tomato Catsup

A homemade tomato ketchup made by boiling tomatoes, adding spices, and reducing the mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Cut the tomatoes into small pieces.

  2. Boil the tomatoes until soft.

  3. Rub the boiled tomatoes through a wire sieve.

Cook the ketchup

  1. Add the vinegar, salt, cloves, allspice, black pepper, red pepper, and garlic to the tomato puree.

  2. Mix together and boil until reduced by half.

Bottle

  1. When cold, strain through a colander and bottle, sealing the corks.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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, flavor, and natural acidity once cooked down.
Cider vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the flavor and helps preserve the sauce.
Salt
Seasons the sauce and helps preserve it.
Garlic
Contributes pungent aroma and savory depth.

The step that matters

Boil until reduced by half. Long boiling evaporates water and concentrates the tomato solids, sugars and acids, thickening the sauce and deepening its flavor. Stopping early leaves it thin and watery, while overcooking can scorch the sugars on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, vinegar, clove, allspice, pepper, garlic):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, clove, allspice, pepper, garlic. 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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