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Sauce

Walnut Catsup

A fermented walnut sauce made with vinegar, anchovies, and spices, aged for two weeks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,000 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Walnut Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Beat the walnuts in a large mortar until thoroughly broken.

  2. Transfer the walnuts to a jar and add the shallots, garlic, vinegar, and salt.

  3. Let the mixture stand for 2 weeks, stirring twice a day.

Make the ketchup

  1. Strain off the liquid and pour it into a stewpan with the anchovies, whole pepper, cloves, and mace.

  2. Boil for 30 minutes, skimming well.

  3. Strain again and, when cold, pour into small bottles, leaving sediment behind.

  4. Cork the bottles tightly and store in a dry place.

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. Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Walnut + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Green walnuts
Provide the main flavour base and dark colour of the ketchup as they steep.
Vinegar
Acts as the liquid that extracts flavour and preserves the mixture.
Anchovies
Add savoury depth, giving a salty, umami background to the sauce.
Shallots
Contribute a mild sharpness and aromatic base during the long steep.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows during steeping and boiling.

The step that matters

Boiling the strained liquid with spices. Boiling for the full 30 minutes while skimming removes foam and impurities, leaving a clearer sauce. Adding spices to a gentle boil extracts their aroma without making the sauce bitter.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, shallot, garlic, vinegar, pepper, 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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