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Walnut Catsup

A walnut-based condiment made with anchovies, spices, and horseradish, boiled and bottled after cooling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Walnut Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnut juice

  1. Pound the green walnuts in a marble mortar.

  2. Squeeze out the juice through a coarse cloth.

Make the ketchup

  1. For each pound of walnut juice, add 1 lb anchovies, 1 lb coarse sea salt, 1 oz cayenne pepper, 2 oz black pepper, 1 oz mace, 1 oz cloves, 1 oz ginger, and a stick horseradish.

  2. Boil the mixture until it reduces to half the quantity.

  3. Pour the mixture into a pot and let it cool.

Bottle and store

  1. Once cool, bottle it and store.

  2. It will be ready for use in three months.

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 + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Ginger + radishtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together172 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Green walnuts
Provide the juice that forms the base of the ketchup.
Anchovies
Add a deep, salty, savory backbone to the mixture.
Coarse sea salt
Preserves the mixture and seasons it strongly.
Cayenne pepper
Adds heat that sharpens the overall flavor.
Black pepper
Adds a sharp, aromatic bite.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until it reduces to half the quantity. Boiling concentrates the liquid and its salt and spices, which helps the ketchup keep during storage. Stopping too early leaves more water, so the ketchup may spoil sooner.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, pepper, clove, ginger, horse, radish):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, pepper, clove, ginger, horse, radish. 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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