Skip to main content
Main

Walnut Catchup

A walnut-based condiment made by steeping walnut shells with salt, then simmering with spices and aging.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Catchup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brine

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

  2. After 6 days, drain the liquid by banking the mixture to one side of the tub.

Spice and boil

  1. Simmer the liquid in an iron boiler until scum forms. Remove the scum.

  2. Add bruised ginger, allspice, long pepper, and cloves to the simmering liquid. Boil for 30 minutes.

Bottle and store

  1. Bottle the mixture. Add an equal amount of spices to each bottle.

  2. Cork the bottles tightly. Seal them. 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 as they steep in the salt.
Common salt
Draws liquid out of the shells and preserves the mixture during the long standing.
Cloves
Add warm, aromatic spice that carries through the preserved liquid.
Ginger
Adds pungent, aromatic warmth to the finished ketchup.

The step that matters

Removing the scum before adding the spices. Scum that forms while the liquid simmers can cloud the ketchup and spoil its clarity and keeping quality. Skimming it off before the spices go in keeps the liquid clean.

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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes