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Ratafia of Green Walnut Shells

A liqueur made by infusing young walnuts, brandy, sugar, nutmeg, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ratafia of Green Walnut Shells

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Choose 200 young walnuts that a pin can easily pierce.

  2. Pound the walnuts in a mortar.

Infuse and bottle

  1. Infuse the walnuts in the brandy with nutmeg and cloves for one month.

  2. After a month, strain the mixture through a flannel bag.

  3. Filter the liquid and bottle it.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Walnut + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Brandy + clovetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,362 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Brandy + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Young walnuts
Their oils and tannins flavour the brandy as the pounded nuts steep in it.
Brandy
Acts as the solvent that extracts flavour from the walnuts and spices over the month.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness and astringency drawn from the walnuts.

The step that matters

Pounding the walnuts. Crushing the walnuts breaks open their cells, exposing oils and flavour compounds to the brandy. Pounding too little leaves the infusion weak, while the walnuts must be young so the shells are still soft enough to pierce.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (brandy, sugar, nutmeg, clove):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Walnutthe original
  4. Pistachiofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, sugar, nutmeg, 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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