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Walnut Catchup

A fermented walnut condiment made with ginger, shallots, garlic, pepper, cloves, salt, and malt vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove 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 Catchup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pound the green walnuts to a pulp and place the pulp in a 5-gallon stone jar.

  2. Add ground ginger, chopped shallots, garlic, bruised red pepper pods, ground cloves, and coarse sea salt.

Macerate and steep

  1. Let the mixture macerate for four weeks in a warm place, stirring every day.

  2. After four weeks, pour boiling malt vinegar over the mixture and let it cool.

Strain and bottle

  1. Strain the mixture through a fine cloth.

  2. Bottle and cork tightly, then 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. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Green walnuts
Provide the bulk of the pulp and the dark, bitter flavour base of the ketchup.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the walnuts and helps preserve the mixture during long maceration.
Malt vinegar
Adds acidity that helps preserve the ketchup and sharpens its flavour.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma and savoury depth to the mixture.
Chopped shallots
Contribute mild onion-like aroma and savoury flavour.
Ground ginger
Adds warm, pungent aroma and spice.

The step that matters

Pouring boiling vinegar over the macerated mixture. Boiling vinegar is poured over the mixture after four weeks; the acid and heat help preserve the ketchup, so the vinegar must be fully boiling and the mixture cooled before straining and bottling.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

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