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Sauce

Walnut Catsup

A condiment made by mashing pickled walnuts with vinegar, boiling to thickness, and adding sweet oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,769 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Walnut Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the ketchup

  1. Mash the pickled walnuts through the vinegar that covers them.

  2. Strain the mixture and boil it until it reaches a proper thickness.

Bottle and preserve

  1. Bottle the catsup and add 1 tablespoon of sweet oil on top of each bottle.

  2. Cork the bottles tightly and seal the corks to preserve for several years.

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. Walnut + vinegartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Pickled walnuts
Provide the main flavor and body of the ketchup.
Vinegar
Acts as the preserving liquid and adds sharp acidity that keeps the ketchup stable.
Sweet oil
Forms a thin layer on top of each bottle that helps protect the surface from air.

The step that matters

Boil until thick. Boiling evaporates water and concentrates the mixture, so it reaches a proper thickness and keeps better in storage. Stopping too early can leave it thin and more likely to spoil.

“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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