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Pontac Ketchup

A fermented elderberry ketchup made with vinegar, spices, shallots, and anchovies.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,677 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Pontac Ketchup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liquor

  1. Place elderberries in a stone jar and cover with strong vinegar.

  2. Bake with bread; while hot, strain the mixture.

Make the ketchup

  1. Boil the strained liquor with cloves, mace, peppercorns, and shallots until flavorful.

  2. Add ½ pound of anchovies for every quart of liquor, stir, and boil until dissolved.

Store

  1. Let cool and store in bottles.

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 + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Vinegar + shallottop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mace + shallottop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

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

What each ingredient does

Elderberries
Provide the main fruity flavour and deep colour of the ketchup.
Strong vinegar
Extracts the berries' flavour and adds sharp acidity that helps preserve the mixture.
Anchovies
Dissolve into the liquor, adding savoury depth and salty umami background.
Shallots
Add mild aromatic sharpness that rounds out the spiced liquor.

The step that matters

Boil the anchovies until fully dissolved. Anchovies break down under sustained heat in the acidic liquor, releasing their savoury flavour evenly. If they are not fully dissolved, small fish pieces remain in the bottled ketchup and the seasoning tastes uneven.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, clove, shallot. 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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