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Walnut Catsup

A preserved walnut sauce made with shallots, garlic, vinegar, salt, anchovies, pepper, mace, and cloves.

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

Steep the walnuts

  1. Beat the walnuts in a large mortar until thoroughly broken.

  2. Transfer the walnuts to a jar.

  3. Add the shallots, garlic, vinegar, and salt to the jar.

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

  5. Strain off the liquid.

Spice and boil

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

  2. Boil for 30 minutes, skimming well.

  3. Strain again.

Bottle and store

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

  2. Cork the bottles tightly.

  3. Store in a dry place.

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

Green walnuts
Provide the main bitter, astringent flavour base of the catsup.
Vinegar
Acts as the solvent and preservative, extracting flavour from the walnuts and keeping the catsup stable.
Salt
Draws moisture out of the walnuts and shallots and helps preserve the mixture.
Anchovies
Add savoury depth and umami to the liquid during boiling.
Shallots
Contribute mild sharpness and aromatic onion-like flavour to the steeping liquid.

The step that matters

Standing for 2 weeks with twice-daily stirring. Stirring keeps the walnuts and shallots evenly in contact with the vinegar and salt, so flavour extracts uniformly over the long steep and the mixture doesn't spoil unevenly.

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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