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Walnut Catsup

A walnut-based sauce made with vinegar, beer, garlic, spices, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 juice

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

  2. Pour in 1 quart of strong vinegar and let the mixture sit until the walnuts turn black, stirring 3-4 times a day.

  3. Add 1 quart of strong old beer and boil the mixture for 10 minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture and let it sit overnight to settle.

  5. Pour off the clear liquid from the sediment.

Season and bottle

  1. Add 1 large bruised head of garlic, ½ ounce of bruised nutmeg, ¼ ounce of crushed cloves, ½ ounce of crushed black pepper, and 1 teaspoon of crushed mace.

  2. Boil the mixture for 30 minutes, then 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 dark colour and bitter, astringent body that defines the ketchup.
Coarse sea salt
Draws juice from the walnuts and preserves the mixture against spoilage.
Strong vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the ketchup.
Strong old beer
Adds malty depth and body to the liquid.
Garlic
Contributes pungent aroma and savoury flavour.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, aromatic heat that balances the richness.

The step that matters

Letting the walnuts turn black in vinegar. The walnut juice must be left until it darkens fully, since the colour and bitter tannin character develop during this slow steeping. Stirring regularly keeps the walnut pieces evenly exposed to the vinegar and salt.

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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