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Sauce

Walnut Catsup

A fermented walnut-based condiment made with shallots, garlic, vinegar, and spices, then strained and bottled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,000 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Walnut Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and steep

  1. Remove the gills from the walnuts using a mortar until thoroughly broken.

  2. Combine the walnuts, shallots, garlic, vinegar, and salt in a jar.

  3. Let the mixture stand for 14 days, stirring twice daily.

Boil and bottle

  1. Strain the liquid into a stewpan and add anchovies, whole pepper, cloves, and mace.

  2. Boil for 30 minutes, skimming off any foam.

  3. Strain again and, when cool, pour into small bottles, leaving sediment behind.

  4. Cork the bottles tightly and store in a dry place.

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. Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Walnut + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Walnuts
Form the main body of the flavour, giving a dark, bitter, astringent character.
Vinegar
Acidity extracts flavour from the solids and helps preserve the finished ketchup.
Shallots
Add sharp, savoury aroma and depth during the long steep.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows and rounds out during steeping and boiling.
Anchovies
Contribute a savoury, salty depth that rounds out the sauce.

The step that matters

Standing for 14 days. The acid slowly draws flavour out of the walnuts and aromatics. Stirring twice daily keeps the solids evenly exposed to the liquid, so cutting the standing time short leaves the flavour weak and uneven.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

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