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Walnut Catsup

A walnut-based sauce made by steeping walnuts, shallots, garlic, and vinegar, then reducing with anchovies, pepper, cloves, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,000 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Walnut Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Remove the gills from the walnuts using a large mortar and pestle until thoroughly broken.

  2. Combine the broken walnuts, shallots, garlic, vinegar, and salt in a jar.

  3. Let the mixture stand for 2 weeks, stirring twice a day.

  4. Strain off the liquid.

Cook the liquid

  1. Pour the liquid into a saucepan with anchovies, whole pepper, cloves, and mace.

  2. Boil for 30 minutes.

  3. Skim off any foam.

  4. Strain again.

Bottle and store

  1. When cool, pour into small bottles, leaving sediment behind.

  2. Cork the bottles tightly and store in a dry place.

  3. Use the sediment for flavoring sauces.

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 + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 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. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Walnuts
Provide the main flavour base and body of the catsup as they steep in vinegar.
Vinegar
Acts as the preserving medium and extracts flavour from the solids over the standing period.
Anchovies
Add savoury depth, giving a salty, umami character to the finished liquid.
Shallots
Contribute pungent, sharp aromatic flavour to the infused vinegar.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma and sharpness that mellows during the long standing period.

The step that matters

Boiling the strained liquid. Boiling for the full time with the spices and anchovies drives off volatile harshness and concentrates flavour. Skimming foam keeps the liquid clear, and cooling before bottling lets sediment settle so it can be left behind.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, shallot, garlic, vinegar, pepper, clove. 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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