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Sauce

Essence of Walnuts,

A walnut-based sauce with anchovies, shallots, vinegar, spices, and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 859 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Essence of Walnuts,

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnut juice

  1. In a marble mortar, cut and pound the walnuts.

  2. Sprinkle with salt and let them stand for 24 hours to settle.

  3. Press off the juice and add anchovies, shallots, and wine vinegar.

  4. Simmer for 30 minutes until the anchovies melt.

Season and strain

  1. Strain the mixture over soup herb powder, black pepper, mustard flour, nutmeg, Cayenne pepper, bay leaves, and port wine.

  2. Simmer together for 15-20 minutes.

  3. Strain through a flannel bag until fine.

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 + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together859 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Walnut + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Shallot + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Walnut + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Walnuts
Provide the bulk of the juice and a deep, nutty flavour base.
Anchovies
Melt down during simmering to add savoury depth and umami.
Shallots
Add aromatic sweetness and onion-like flavour as they cook down.
Wine vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the liquid.
Port wine
Adds sweetness, body and fruity depth to the finished essence.

The step that matters

Simmer until the anchovies melt. The anchovies must fully dissolve into the liquid so they blend into the essence rather than leaving solid pieces. Gentle simmering extracts flavour without scorching the walnut juice, which can turn bitter if it boils hard.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, wine, vinegar, pepper, mustard, flour, nutmeg):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, wine, vinegar, pepper, mustard, flour, nutmeg. 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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