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Sauce

Catsup

A sauce made from ginger, Jamaica pepper, black pepper, garlic, port wine lees, and anchovies.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,402 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine ginger, Jamaica pepper, black pepper, garlic, port wine lees, and anchovies in a pot.

  2. Add the liquor of the walnuts and bring to a boil.

Simmer and reduce

  1. Simmer for twenty minutes, skimming regularly.

  2. Set aside for two days, then boil again until reduced by one-third.

Bottle

  1. Allow to cool, then bottle, cork, and seal with wax.

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. Ginger + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

  3. Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + port winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,804 recipes

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

  5. Ginger + port winetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together125 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Provide the savory, deep umami base that defines the sauce.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows during long simmering.
Black pepper
Contributes sharp, lingering pungency that balances the richness.
Ginger
Adds warm, fresh aromatic notes to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boiling again until reduced by one-third. Reduction concentrates the flavours and thickens the liquid. Boiling too long over-concentrates the salt and savory notes, so the reduction should be watched and stopped at the target volume.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ginger, pepper, port wine):

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, pepper, port wine. 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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