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Sauce

Walnut Catsup

A walnut-based condiment made with anchovies, eschalots, spices, vinegar, beer, and garlic.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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

Prepare the walnut liquor

  1. Pound 100 young walnuts in a mortar, adding ½ pound of salt as you go.

  2. Pour in 1 quart of strong vinegar.

  3. Let it sit until the walnuts turn black, stirring 3-4 times daily.

  4. Add 1 quart of strong old beer and boil for 10 minutes.

  5. Strain and let it sit overnight to settle.

  6. Pour off the clear liquid.

Season and bottle

  1. Add bruised garlic, nutmegs, cloves, black pepper, and mace.

  2. Boil together for 30 minutes.

  3. Bottle and cork the catsup well.

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. Pepper + clovetop 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

Young walnuts
Provide the juice and dark colour that form the base of the ketchup.
Strong vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the liquid.
Strong old beer
Adds body and malty depth to the liquid as it boils.
Salt (in the method)
Draws out juice from the walnuts and seasons the mixture.

The step that matters

Letting the walnuts turn black. Walnut juice darkens through oxidation and steeping in acid over several days. Stopping early gives a pale, weakly flavoured liquid, so the cook should wait until the walnuts are fully black.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, shallot, pepper, clove, vinegar, beer, 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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