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Sauce

Ketchup Sauce

A sauce made from red wine, ketchup, butter, pepper, and vinegar, served warm over steaks or mutton chops.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Red wine and vinegar work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 575 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Ketchup Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine red wine and ketchup in a saucepan.

  2. Add butter, pepper, and vinegar.

  3. Heat gently, stirring until well mixed.

  4. Serve warm over steaks or mutton chops.

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. Red wine + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together575 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Walnut + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Red wine + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,599 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the sauce base.
Ketchup
Provides sweetness, tang, and body as the main sauce base.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, glossy texture and rounder mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the sweetness of the ketchup.

The step that matters

Heat gently, stirring until well mixed. High heat can scorch the sugars in the ketchup and cause the butter to separate, so gentle heat with constant stirring keeps the sauce smooth and evenly blended.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (red wine, ketchup, butter, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Walnutthe original
  2. Beansfits about as well
  3. Peasfits about as well
  4. Chestnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against red wine, ketchup, butter, pepper, vinegar. 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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