Skip to main content
Main

Walnut Catsup

A thick sauce made from walnut pulp, vinegar, sugar, spices, and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Walnut Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Gather walnuts before the nut inside hardens.

  2. Crush the walnuts finely using a heavy pestle in a strong box.

  3. Spread crushed walnuts out to air for 24 to 45 hours until they turn black.

  4. Place walnuts in a cask and add 40 pounds of salt for each 50 gallons of walnuts.

  5. Cover with water and let stand for 2 weeks.

  6. Grind the walnuts using a chopper and return the pulp to the cask.

  7. Let the pulp stand for 2 to 4 weeks until ready to make catsup.

Make the catsup

  1. In a kettle, combine 50 gallons of walnut pulp, 40 gallons of vinegar, and 40 pounds of sugar.

  2. Add 1 pound of onions, 6 ounces of garlic, ½ pound of ground cloves, ½ pound of ground mace, ½ pound of ground ginger, and ½ pound of black pepper.

  3. Cook slowly for 2 hours, just simmering.

  4. After cooking, add enough water to replace any loss from evaporation.

  5. Strain the catsup through a 10 mesh sieve and store in a cask.

  6. Finally, stir in 4 gallons of port wine.

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 + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Garlic + gingertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Walnut + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Walnut pulp
Forms the thick body of the catsup and supplies its dark, rich flavor.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the catsup.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness that rounds out the acidity and spices.
Onions
Contribute savory depth and aromatic body to the sauce.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma and savory depth to the sauce.
Port wine
Adds a sweet, fortified wine note stirred in at the end for aroma.

The step that matters

Simmering slowly for 2 hours. Gentle simmering lets the pulp thicken and the spices blend without scorching the sugar and solids on the bottom of the kettle. Boiling hard can burn the sugar and cause uneven texture.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, vinegar, sugar, onion, garlic, clove, ginger):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, vinegar, sugar, onion, garlic, clove, ginger. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes