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Walnut Catsup

A walnut-based condiment made by fermenting walnuts with vinegar, salt, and spices, then boiling and bottling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Walnut Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Beat the walnuts to a paste.

  2. Add 2 quarts vinegar and a handful coarse sea salt to the paste.

  3. Let the mixture stand in a stone jar for 8 days, stirring frequently.

Season and cook

  1. Strain the mixture into a tin saucepan and bring it to a boil, skimming well.

  2. Add ginger, horseradish, mustard seed, minced garlic, and black pepper.

  3. Boil once more, then pour into an earthen pan and let it cool.

Bottle

  1. Bottle the catsup, dividing the ingredients between each bottle.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Horseradish + garlictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together719 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Mustard + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,053 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

Walnuts
Provide the main body and rich, earthy flavour of the ketchup once beaten into a paste.
Vinegar
Acts as the preserving liquid and gives the ketchup its sharp, acidic bite.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the walnuts and helps preserve the mixture during the long standing.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma and savoury depth to the finished ketchup.

The step that matters

Standing for 8 days with frequent stirring. Vinegar and salt slowly break down and extract flavour from the walnut paste during the long rest. Stirring keeps the paste evenly exposed to the liquid, so the flavour develops uniformly and no part spoils or stays bland.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Cashew nutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, ginger, horseradish, mustard, clove, garlic, pepper. 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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