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Walnut Catsup

A walnut-based ketchup made by steeping walnuts in vinegar with spices and straining the liquid.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Walnut Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Crack the walnuts and remove the shells.

  2. Chop the walnuts finely.

Steep

  1. Combine the chopped walnuts with vinegar, salt, black pepper, allspice, and cloves in a large jar.

  2. Seal the jar and let it sit for 2 weeks, shaking it daily.

Strain and bottle

  1. Strain the mixture through a fine cloth and bottle the liquid.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Walnut + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Walnut + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,592 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

Walnuts
Provide the main body and flavour base that the vinegar extracts over time.
Vinegar
Acts as the solvent and preservative, pulling flavour out of the walnuts and keeping the ketchup stable.
Salt
Seasons the mixture and helps draw flavour from the walnuts.

The step that matters

Seal the jar and let it sit for 2 weeks, shaking it daily. Flavour develops slowly as the vinegar extracts compounds from the walnuts. Daily shaking keeps the chopped nuts in contact with the liquid so extraction is even across the whole batch.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, pepper, allspice, clove):

  1. Chickpeafits about as well
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Beansfits about as well
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, allspice, clove. 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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