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Walnut Ketchup

A condiment made from crushed walnut shells, spices, and ginger, seasoned with salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Ketchup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the shells

  1. Bruise the walnut shells in a hair bag or marble mortar.

  2. Mix the crushed shells with coarse sea salt in layers or with a pestle.

Steep and season

  1. Cover the mixture and let it sit.

  2. For every quart of juice, add the sliced ginger, black pepper, allspice, cloves, and nutmeg.

  3. Adjust salt according to taste.

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. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

Walnut shells
Supply the main body and dark colour of the ketchup as their compounds are extracted.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the crushed shells and helps preserve the mixture.
Ginger
Adds a warm, sharp aroma that brightens the dark base.
Black pepper
Contributes pungent heat and aroma to the finished ketchup.
Allspice
Adds warm, clove-like aroma that rounds out the spice blend.
Cloves
Contribute strong, warm aroma; only a small amount is needed to be noticeable.

The step that matters

Adjust salt according to taste. Salt concentration controls both flavour and preservation, and salt cannot be removed once added. Tasting before adding more prevents an overly salty ketchup.

Swap the walnut

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, pepper, allspice, clove, nutmeg. 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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