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Elderberry Catsup

A fermented elderberry sauce made with vinegar, sugar, spices, and anchovy paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,152 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Elderberry Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Steep the elderberries

  1. Pick and place 2 quarts of ripe elderberries in an earthen jar.

  2. Pour 2 quarts of boiled wine vinegar over the elderberries.

  3. After 3 days, drain the mixture and pour the liquid into a saucepan.

Make the ketchup

  1. Add sugar, peppercorns, ginger, mace, and anchovy paste to the saucepan.

  2. Boil for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  3. Pour the mixture back over the elderberries and let it cool.

Rest and bottle

  1. Cover and let it sit for 3 days.

  2. Strain through a towel and bottle the liquid, corking the bottles 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. Ginger + macetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Wine + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,493 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Wine + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Elderberries
Provide the main fruit flavour and deep colour that form the base of the ketchup.
Wine vinegar
Extracts flavour from the berries and gives the ketchup its sharp, acidic preserving bite.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and rounds out the fruit flavour.
Anchovy paste
Adds a savoury depth that boosts the overall umami of the ketchup.

The step that matters

Boiling the strained liquid for 30 minutes. Boiling concentrates the flavours and drives off some water, while the vinegar's acidity helps keep the finished ketchup stable. Stirring prevents the sugar and spices from scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wine, vinegar, sugar, ginger, anchovy):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, vinegar, sugar, ginger, anchovy. 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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