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Another Good Receipt for Walnut Catsup

A walnut-based condiment made by steeping walnuts, eschalots, garlic, salt, and vinegar, then simmering with anchovies, pepper, cloves, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Another Good Receipt for Walnut Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnut mixture

  1. Bruise the walnuts in a large marble mortar until broken.

  2. Place the bruised walnuts in a stone jar with the sliced eschalots, garlic, coarse sea salt, and vinegar.

  3. Let the mixture stand for 10 days, stirring it morning and night.

  4. Strain the liquid from the jar.

Boil and strain

  1. Boil the strained liquid for 30 minutes with anchovies, whole black pepper, cloves, and mace.

  2. Skim the mixture.

  3. Strain the mixture again.

  4. Let the mixture cool.

Bottle and store

  1. Pour the liquid into small dry bottles, avoiding sediment.

  2. Cork the bottles securely and store them 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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Walnut + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Garlic + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Green walnuts
Provide the main flavour and dark colour of the ketchup as they steep in vinegar.
Vinegar
Acts as the preserving liquid that extracts flavour from the walnuts and inhibits spoilage.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out liquid and helps preserve the mixture during the long standing period.
Anchovies
Add savoury depth, adding umami to the finished liquid.
Eschalots
Add sharp, aromatic onion-like flavour that mellows during standing.
Black pepper
Adds pungent aroma and gentle heat to the simmered liquid.

The step that matters

Straining after the 10-day standing. Sediment left in the liquid can cloud the ketchup and encourage spoilage, so the liquid should be strained carefully and again after boiling. Pouring off only clear liquid into dry bottles keeps the finished product stable in storage.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, 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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