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Oyster Catsup

A preserved oyster sauce made by boiling oysters with salt, mace, cayenne, wine, and optional brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and brandy work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 620 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Oyster Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Wash the oysters in their own liquor.

  2. In a marble mortar, combine the oysters with salt, mace, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Pound the mixture together.

Make the ketchup

  1. Add the white wine and boil for a few minutes.

  2. Rub the mixture through a sieve.

  3. Boil it again and skim off any impurities.

Bottle and keep

  1. When cold, bottle, cork, and seal the catsup.

  2. For longer preservation, add a glass of brandy.

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. White wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together620 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Pepper + white winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,433 recipes

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

  3. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Oyster + white winetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together518 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Mace + white winetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,329 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main flavour and body of the ketchup.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the oysters before cooking.
Ground mace
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour.
Cayenne pepper
Adds heat and a sharp, peppery bite.
White wine
Thins the mixture and adds acidity when boiled.

The step that matters

Skimming after the second boil. Impurities rise to the surface as the mixture boils. Skimming them off keeps the ketchup clear and helps it keep well once bottled.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, pepper, white wine, brandy):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, pepper, white wine, brandy. 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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