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To Make Walnut Catchup Another Way

A walnut-based condiment made by steeping walnuts in vinegar, then adding spices, anchovies, wine, and reducing.

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

To Make Walnut Catchup Another Way

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Steep the walnuts

  1. Place walnuts in jars and cover with cold, strong vinegar.

  2. Seal jars tightly and let them sit for twelve months.

  3. Remove walnuts from the vinegar.

Make the ketchup

  1. For every gallon of vinegar, add 2 heads of garlic, ½ pound of anchovies, 1 quart of red wine, 1 ounce each of mace, cloves, long pepper, black pepper, Jamaica pepper, and ginger.

  2. Boil the mixture until it reduces to half the quantity.

  3. The next day, bottle it for use.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Walnuts
Steeped in vinegar, they release flavour and colour into the liquid that becomes the ketchup.
Cold strong vinegar
Acts as the preserving liquid that extracts and holds the flavours over the long steep.
Anchovies
Dissolve during boiling to add savoury depth and umami to the ketchup.
Red wine
Adds acidity and body, deepening the colour and flavour of the ketchup.
Garlic
Contributes pungent aroma and savoury flavour that mellows during boiling.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until it reduces to half the quantity. Reducing concentrates the flavours and evaporates water, which helps the ketchup keep and gives it a thicker, more intense taste. Stopping too early leaves it thin and weakly seasoned.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Rosemaryfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, vinegar, garlic, red wine, clove, pepper, 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.

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