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Sauce

Walnut Catsup

A preserved walnut shell sauce flavored with ginger, allspice, long pepper, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Walnut Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnut liquor

  1. Mix walnut shells with salt in a tub and let stand for 6 days, mashing frequently.

  2. Drain the liquor from the mixture by banking it up on one side of the tub.

  3. Simmer the liquor in an iron boiler until scum arises.

Spice and boil

  1. Bruise the ginger, allspice, long pepper, and cloves, and add to the simmering liquor.

  2. Boil slowly for 30 minutes.

Bottle and store

  1. Bottle the mixture.

  2. Add equal amounts of spice to each bottle.

  3. Cork tightly and seal.

  4. Store in a cool, dry place for 1 year before using.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Green walnut shells
Provide the main flavour and dark colour of the ketchup as they steep in salt.
Coarse sea salt
Draws liquid out of the shells and preserves the mixture.
Ginger
Adds warm, pungent aroma to the spiced liquor.
Allspice
Adds warm, sweet-spiced aroma to the liquor.
Long pepper
Adds a sharp, peppery heat to the liquor.
Cloves
Adds strong, aromatic spice to the liquor.

The step that matters

Simmering the liquor until scum rises. Skimming off the scum removes proteins and impurities that would otherwise cloud the liquid and can spoil it during long storage.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Beansfits about as well
  4. Cashew nutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, allspice, 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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