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Elderberry Catsup

A fermented sauce made from elderberries, 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

Macerate

  1. Place elderberries in an earthen jar.

  2. Pour boiled wine vinegar over the elderberries.

  3. Let the mixture sit for three days.

Make the catsup

  1. Drain the liquid into a saucepan.

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

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Stir occasionally.

  5. Boil for 30 minutes.

  6. Pour the liquid back over the elderberries.

Cover and strain

  1. Cover the jar when cool.

  2. After three days, strain the mixture through a towel.

Bottle

  1. Transfer the catsup into bottles.

  2. Cork 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 body of the ketchup.
Wine vinegar
Adds sharp acidity, extracts flavour from the berries and helps preserve the sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Whole peppercorns
Contribute a sharp, pungent spiced aroma.
Ground ginger
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes.
Anchovy paste
Adds savoury depth, rounding out the sauce without a distinct fishy taste.

The step that matters

Boil for 30 minutes. Boiling the vinegar mixture with the spices for 30 minutes drives off some water and draws flavour out of the spices, while the vinegar's acidity helps keep the sauce stable.

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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