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Sauce

Oyster Catsup

A fermented oyster sauce made with salt, mace, cayenne, wine, and optional brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and brandy work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 620 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Oyster Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Wash the oysters in their own liquor.

  2. Combine the oysters with salt, mace, and cayenne pepper in a marble mortar.

  3. Pound the mixture together.

Cook and strain

  1. Add the white wine.

  2. Boil for a few minutes.

  3. Rub the mixture through a sieve.

  4. Boil the mixture again.

  5. Skim off any impurities.

Bottle

  1. When cold, bottle the catsup.

  2. Cork the bottle.

  3. Seal the catsup.

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. White wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together620 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Pepper + white winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,433 recipes

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

  3. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Oyster + white winetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together518 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Mace + white winetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,329 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh oysters
Provide the main body and savoury flavour of the ketchup.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the oyster mixture.
White wine
Adds acidity and liquid, thinning the pounded oysters into a pourable sauce.
Pounded mace
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour.
Cayenne pepper
Adds sharp heat that balances the richness of the oysters.

The step that matters

Skim off any impurities. Proteins and fine solids rise to the surface as the mixture boils. Removing them keeps the ketchup clear and stops off-flavours from setting into the final sauce.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, pepper, white wine, brandy):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, pepper, white wine, brandy. 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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