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Another Good Receipt for Walnut Catsup

A walnut-based condiment made by steeping walnuts with aromatics, then simmering with anchovies and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Another Good Receipt for Walnut Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Bruise the walnuts in a large marble mortar until broken.

  2. Place the walnuts in a stone jar with the eschalots, garlic, salt, and vinegar.

  3. Let the mixture stand for 10 days, stirring it morning and night.

Make the ketchup

  1. Strain the liquid and boil it for 30 minutes with anchovies, black pepper, cloves, and mace.

  2. Skim the liquid, strain it again, and let it cool.

Bottle and store

  1. Pour the liquid into small dry bottles, leaving sediment behind.

  2. Cork the bottles securely and store them in a dry 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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Garlic + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Green walnuts
Provide the bitter, astringent base flavour that defines the ketchup.
Vinegar
Acts as the preserving liquid and extracts flavour from the walnuts and aromatics.
Anchovies
Add savoury depth, or umami, that rounds out the sauce.
Eschalots
Contribute pungent sharpness and aromatic flavour during the long steep.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out liquid and preserves the mixture while it stands.

The step that matters

Boiling the strained liquid with spices. Boiling for the stated time concentrates the flavour and helps stabilise the liquid, while skimming removes scum that would otherwise spoil the ketchup's clarity and keeping quality.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, garlic, vinegar, pepper, 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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