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Walnut Catsup

A preserved walnut sauce made by soaking, crushing, and boiling walnuts with vinegar, spices, and onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Walnut Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Soak the walnuts in brine for 10 days.

  2. Crush the walnuts in a mortar.

Macerate with vinegar

  1. To each dozen walnuts, add 1 quart of vinegar.

  2. Stir the mixture well every day for a week.

  3. Add 1 teaspoon of cloves, 1 teaspoon of black pepper, minced garlic, ½ ounce of mace, ½ ounce of nutmeg, and chopped onions to each quart.

  4. Boil the mixture for 20 minutes and then bottle it.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Walnut + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Walnuts
Provide the bulk of the ketchup and its rich, earthy flavour once crushed and steeped.
Vinegar
Acts as the preserving liquid and extracts flavour from the walnuts while adding acidity.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and body to the liquid as they break down in the steeping.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma and savoury depth to the finished ketchup.
Mace
Contributes warm, aromatic spice notes that carry through the vinegar.
Nutmeg
Contributes warm, aromatic spice notes that complement the mace.

The step that matters

Boiling and bottling after the steeping. Boiling for 20 minutes helps stabilise the flavour and reduces the risk of spoilage before the ketchup is sealed in bottles. Cooling and storing the ketchup carefully in sealed containers keeps it stable for later use.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, vinegar, clove, pepper, garlic, nutmeg, 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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