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Oyster Catsup

A sauce made from fresh oysters, sherry, salt, cayenne pepper, powdered mace, and cider vinegar, boiled and sieved.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and cider work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 143 recipes. Both carry ethyl pentanoate, which smells yeast, fruit. The science ↓

Oyster Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Procure very fresh oysters and open enough to fill a pint measure; save the liquor.

  2. Scald the oysters in the saved liquor with the sherry.

  3. Strain the oysters and chop them finely with the salt, cayenne, and mace until reduced to a pulp.

Make the catsup

  1. Add the pulp to the liquor in which they were scalded and boil for five minutes, skimming well.

  2. Rub the mixture through a sieve.

  3. When cold, bottle and cork closely. Seal the corks.

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. Sherry + cidertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).

  2. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Sherry + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together660 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Oyster meats
Provide the main body and savory, briny flavor of the catsup.
Sherry
Adds aromatic depth and a mild sweetness to the scalding liquid.
Salt
Seasons the pulp and helps draw out and concentrate flavor.
Cayenne pepper
Adds heat and a sharp, spicy bite.
Powdered mace
Contributes warm, aromatic spice notes.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the catsup.

The step that matters

Boiling and skimming the mixture. Boiling for five minutes reduces the liquid and cooks the oyster pulp, while skimming removes foam and coagulated proteins that would cloud the catsup and dull its flavor.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, meat, sherry, pepper, cider, vinegar):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, meat, sherry, pepper, cider, vinegar. 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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