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A Fine Catsup

A vinegar-based condiment made with anchovies, spices, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 376 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

A Fine Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the catsup

  1. In a wide-mouth glass bottle, combine vinegar, shallots, heated red wine, and heated anchovies.

  2. Let the mixture cool, then add the remaining red wine, mace, ginger, cloves, peppercorns, horseradish, lemon rind, and nutmeg.

  3. Seal the bottle tightly and shake it several times each day for a week.

  4. If using, add mushroom catsup.

Store

  1. Store in a dry place; it will keep for years if well sealed.

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. Shallot + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together376 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. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Clove + horseradishtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Dissolve into the vinegar to give the catsup its deep savoury, umami base.
Vinegar
Acts as the preserving liquid and extracts flavour from the spices and shallots over time.
Red wine
Adds body and depth, and its alcohol helps extract flavour from the aromatics.
Shallots
Contribute mild onion-like sweetness and aroma as they steep in the liquid.
Horseradish
Adds a sharp, pungent bite that mellows during steeping.

The step that matters

Sealing and shaking the bottle daily. A tight seal keeps air and contaminants out while the vinegar preserves the mixture. Daily shaking spreads the flavours from the solids into the liquid, so the catsup develops evenly over the week.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, shallot, red wine, wine, ginger, clove, horseradish. 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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