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White Walnut Catchup

A vinegar-based condiment made from walnuts, mace, cloves, onion, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,400 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

White Walnut Catchup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Gather walnuts when soft enough to run a pin through.

  2. Soak them in salt and water for 10 days.

  3. Pound the walnuts in a mortar or pot.

Make the ketchup

  1. Add 1 quart of strong vinegar for every dozen walnuts and stir occasionally.

  2. Strain the mixture through a bag.

  3. Add 1 teaspoon of pounded mace, 1 teaspoon of cloves, and a few slices of onion to every quart of liquid.

  4. Boil for 30 minutes, then let it cool.

  5. Bottle the ketchup.

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Walnut + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Clove + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Walnut + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,771 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Walnuts
Provide the main body and flavor base of the ketchup once pounded and steeped.
Strong vinegar
Acts as the preserving liquid and gives the ketchup its sharp acidity.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavor to the liquid.
Cloves
Contribute a pungent, aromatic spice note to the ketchup.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, vinegar, clove, onion. 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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