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Sauce

Walnut Catsup

A walnut-based condiment made by simmering walnuts with ginger, mace, garlic, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Walnut Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Steep the walnuts

  1. Remove the green shells from the walnuts and place them in a deep pan.

  2. Sprinkle the walnuts with coarse sea salt.

  3. Let them stand for a week, stirring daily with a wooden spoon.

Make the ketchup

  1. Strain the mixture through a sieve and measure the liquid into a saucepan.

  2. For each pint of liquid, add ½ ounce of bruised ginger, ½ ounce of mace, and a small piece of garlic.

  3. Boil the mixture together for 20 minutes, then set aside to cool.

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

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

  2. Walnut + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Ginger + macetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Walnut + garlictop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,009 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  5. Walnut + macetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together765 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Green walnuts
Release juices and tannins during steeping, giving the ketchup its dark colour and astringent body.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the walnuts and helps preserve the steeping liquid.
Bruised ginger
Adds a warm, aromatic spiciness to the liquid.
Mace
Contributes a warm, aromatic flavour that complements the walnuts.

The step that matters

Standing and daily stirring. Salt draws liquid out of the walnuts over days, and regular stirring keeps the salt and juices evenly distributed so the walnuts steep consistently rather than spoiling on the surface.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Corianderfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, ginger, garlic. 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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