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To Make Walnut Catsup

A condiment made by steeping walnuts in vinegar with cloves, mace, and garlic, then boiling and bottling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,400 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

To Make Walnut Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Gather the walnuts and keep them in salt and water.

  2. Pound the walnuts in a marble mortar.

  3. Add 1 quart of vinegar for every dozen walnuts and stir well daily for a week.

Strain and finish

  1. Put the mixture in a bag and press all the liquid through.

  2. Add 2 teaspoons of pounded cloves, 2 teaspoons of pounded mace, and 6 cloves of garlic to the liquid.

  3. Boil for 15 to 20 minutes and then 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. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Vinegar + garlictop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Walnuts
Provide the bulk and rich, earthy flavor of the catsup.
Vinegar
Adds acidity, draws flavor out of the walnuts and helps preserve the liquid.
Garlic
Adds sharp, pungent aroma to the liquid.
Cloves
Add warm, aromatic spice flavor.
Mace
Adds a warm, delicate aroma.

The step that matters

Stir the walnut and vinegar mixture daily for a week. Steeping lets the vinegar slowly draw flavor and color out of the walnuts. Stirring each day keeps the walnut pieces in contact with the vinegar so the extraction is even rather than uneven.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, vinegar, clove, 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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