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Walnut Catsup

A fermented walnut-based condiment made with vinegar, spices, and onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Walnut Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Steep the walnuts

  1. Prick the walnuts and place them in a jar, covering them with water.

  2. Add a handful of coarse sea salt for every twenty-five walnuts.

  3. Stir the mixture twice a day for fourteen days.

  4. Drain the liquid into a kettle.

Make the ketchup

  1. Cover the walnuts with boiling vinegar, crush them to a pulp, and strain through a colander into the liquid.

  2. For every quart of liquid, add two ounces each of white pepper and ginger, one ounce each of cloves and grated nutmeg, a pinch of cayenne pepper, one small minced onion, and one teaspoon of celery seed tied in muslin.

  3. Boil the mixture together for one hour.

  4. When cold, bottle the catsup.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Walnut + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Young, tender walnuts
Provide the main body and dark, earthy flavor of the ketchup.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out liquid and preserves the walnuts during the long steeping.
Boiling vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the ketchup.
Ginger
Adds warm, aromatic pungency that balances the rich walnut flavor.
White pepper
Adds sharp, lingering heat and spice to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir the walnuts twice a day for fourteen days. Regular stirring keeps the walnuts evenly in contact with the salt and liquid, so they cure consistently rather than spoiling or softening unevenly at the surface.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, vinegar, ginger, clove, nutmeg, pepper, onion. 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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