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Sauce

Anchovy Catchup

A fermented anchovy sauce made with wine, water, lemon, spices, and anchovy liquor, reduced and bottled for seasoning butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and anchovy match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 488 recipes mention both. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Also mentioned in the method: butter

Directions

Make the ketchup

  1. Combine all ingredients in a pot.

  2. Boil until the mixture is reduced to 1 quart.

  3. Strain the mixture and bottle it for use.

Use

  1. Use 2 teaspoons to flavor 1 pound of melted butter.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Shallot + anchovytop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together488 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Mace + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Horseradish + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together360 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. White wine + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together3,764 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Shallot + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,484 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Dissolve into the liquid to give the ketchup its deep, savory, salty backbone.
Shallots or onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth as they soften and reduce in the liquid.
White wine
Provides acidity and body, and concentrates as the mixture reduces.
Lemon
Adds bright acidity that balances the saltiness of the anchovies.

The step that matters

Boil until reduced to 1 quart. Reducing concentrates the flavors and evaporates excess water, so the ketchup becomes a stable, intensely flavored seasoning rather than a thin liquid. Stopping too early leaves it diluted and less shelf-stable; boiling too long makes it overly salty and dark.

Flavor stand-ins for the horseradish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mace, shallot, white wine, lemon, anchovy, clove):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  3. Leekbetter flavor fit
  4. Horseradishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mace, shallot, white wine, lemon, anchovy, clove. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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