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Walnut Catsup

A walnut-based ketchup made by simmering walnuts, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Walnut Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Gather walnuts while they are still tender enough to run a needle through them.

  2. Pound the walnuts in a stone mortar.

  3. Place the walnuts in a porcelain-lined kettle and cover with water.

  4. Cook slowly for 2 to 3 hours.

Season and reduce

  1. Strain the mixture and add 1 teaspoon each of ground mace and cloves.

  2. Boil down the mixture until it reduces to one-third of its original quantity.

  3. Optionally, add a little garlic with the spices.

Bottle

  1. Fill bottles with equal parts of the mixture and strong vinegar, then seal immediately.

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 + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Vinegar + garlictop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Walnut + garlictop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,009 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

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 rich, earthy flavor of the ketchup.
Strong vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the ketchup.
Ground mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavor.
Ground cloves
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavor.

The step that matters

Boil down the mixture to one-third. Reducing the liquid concentrates the flavors and thickens the mixture. Bottling before it is reduced enough leaves a thinner, more perishable ketchup.

Swap the garlic

The recipe marks garlic as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, mace, clove, vinegar):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, mace, clove, 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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