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Walnut Catsup

A fermented walnut ketchup made with anchovies, garlic, spices, vinegar, and beer.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 the walnut liquor

  1. In a mortar, combine 100 young walnuts with ½ pound of coarse sea salt.

  2. Pour in 1 quart of strong vinegar and let it sit until the walnuts turn black, stirring 3-4 times daily.

  3. Add 1 quart of strong old beer and boil the mixture for 10 minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture and let it sit overnight to settle.

  5. Pour off the clear liquid from the sediment and add ½ pound of anchovies, 1 bruised head of garlic, ½ ounce of bruised nutmeg, ¼ ounce of cloves, ½ ounce of black pepper, and 2 teaspoons of mace.

Boil and bottle

  1. Boil the mixture for 30 minutes, then bottle and seal the catsup 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. 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. Clove + macetop 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

Young walnuts
Their expressed juice provides the dark colour and the bulk of the ketchup's base flavour.
Anchovies
Dissolve into the liquid to add a deep savoury, umami backbone.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out juice from the walnuts and preserves the mixture against spoilage.
Strong vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the ketchup.
Strong old beer
Adds malty depth and body to the liquid.

The step that matters

Letting the walnuts turn black in the vinegar and salt. The walnut juice must darken fully before the liquid is strained and boiled. Stirring keeps the walnuts evenly exposed to the brine and acid, so the colour and flavour develop throughout rather than only on the surface.

Swap the mace

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

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

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