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Sauce

Walnut Catsup

A walnut-based sauce made with anchovies, shallots, cloves, mace, pepper, and garlic, simmered and bottled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,000 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Walnut Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the ketchup

  1. Boil or simmer the walnut juice in a large pot and skim it well.

  2. Add the anchovies, shallots, cloves, mace, pepper, and garlic to the pot.

  3. Simmer until the shallots sink to the bottom.

  4. Remove the pot from heat and let the liquid cool.

Bottle and store

  1. Bottle the catsup, dividing the spices evenly among the bottles.

  2. Cork the bottles tightly, cover with a bladder, and store in a cool place.

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. Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Walnut + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together440 recipes

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

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Walnut juice
Forms the liquid base and carries the savoury, tannic flavour of the ketchup.
Anchovies
Dissolve during simmering to add deep savoury, umami flavour.
Shallots
Add aromatic sweetness and body as they soften during the long simmer.
Cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice notes that preserve and flavour the liquid.
Mace
Adds a delicate, warm aroma that complements the other spices.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, pungent heat and aroma to the finished ketchup.

The step that matters

Skimming the walnut juice. Boiling or simmering releases proteins and impurities that rise as foam; skimming them off keeps the finished liquid clear and prevents off-flavours from carrying into the ketchup.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, shallot, clove, pepper, garlic. 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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