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Oyster Ketchup

A preserved oyster condiment made by boiling oysters with sherry, salt, cayenne, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Oyster Ketchup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Open the oysters and save the liquor.

  2. Scald the oysters in their liquor with the sherry.

  3. Strain the oysters and place them in a mortar with salt, cayenne, and mace.

  4. Pound the mixture until it becomes a pulp.

Make the ketchup

  1. Add the pulp to the liquor and boil for 5 minutes, skimming well.

  2. Rub the mixture through a sieve, cool, and cork tightly.

  3. Seal the corks. Store from September to April.

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. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Sherry + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Sherry + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Oyster + sherrytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together340 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Oyster + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,663 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh oysters
Provide the main flavour and body of the ketchup once pounded and strained.
Sherry
Adds acidity and wine flavour while helping to scald the oysters.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the mixture and helps draw out and preserve the oyster flavour.
Cayenne pepper
Adds heat that gives the ketchup its sharp, spiced character.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the oyster mixture.

The step that matters

Skimming while boiling. Boiling the oyster liquor with the pulp releases foam and impurities that rise to the surface. Skimming them off keeps the ketchup clear and clean-tasting, and it helps the mixture keep better in storage.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, sherry, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, sherry, pepper. 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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