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Sauce

Walnut Catsup

A walnut-based ketchup made with vinegar, spices, and shallot.

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

  1. In a pot, combine walnut pulp, vinegar, mace, ginger, cloves, allspice, white pepper, and minced shallot.

  2. Simmer the mixture for 30 minutes.

  3. Strain off the liquid.

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. Clove + allspicetop 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. Clove + shallottop 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

Walnut pulp
Provides the thick, earthy body and much of the deep flavour of the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the sauce.
Minced shallot
Adds a mild, savoury onion-like aroma that rounds out the sauce.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, vinegar, mace, ginger, clove, allspice, shallot):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, vinegar, mace, ginger, clove, allspice, shallot. 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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