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Sauce

Oyster Catsup

A sauce made from fresh oysters, sherry wine, salt, mace, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Oyster Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Wash the oysters in their own liquor and skim it.

  2. Pound the oysters in a marble mortar.

Make the catsup

  1. In a pot, combine the oysters and sherry wine, then bring to a boil.

  2. Add the coarse sea salt, pounded mace, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Boil again, skim the mixture, and strain it through a sieve.

Bottle

  1. Once cooled, bottle the mixture, cork it well, and seal.

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 + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Sherry + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Sherry + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Wine + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Oyster + sherrytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together340 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main body and savory, briny flavour of the catsup.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and depth, helping extract and carry the oyster flavour.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the catsup and draws out flavour from the oysters.
Pounded mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour.
Cayenne pepper
Adds heat and a sharp, pungent bite.

The step that matters

Skimming and straining after the second boil. Oysters release foam and fine particles as they cook. Skimming and straining remove them, leaving a clear, smooth catsup that keeps better in the bottle.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, sherry, wine, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, sherry, wine, pepper. 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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