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Walnut Ketchup

A fermented walnut-based condiment made with walnut shells, water, salt, shallots, cloves, mace, pepper, and garlic.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,000 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Walnut Ketchup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liquid

  1. Place walnut shells in a pan with water and a large amount of salt.

  2. Let the mixture sit for 10 days.

  3. Break the shells in the water and drain through a sieve, pressing down with a heavy weight to extract the juice.

Cook and flavour

  1. Bring the liquid to a boil, skimming off any scum that forms.

  2. Add shallots, cloves, mace, pepper, and garlic, and simmer until the shallots sink.

  3. Remove from heat, let cool, then bottle and cork tightly.

  4. Allow to stand for 6 months before using. If it ferments, boil and skim again.

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. Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Walnut + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Walnut shells
Provide the main flavour and dark colour of the ketchup while steeping in salted water.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out juices from the shells and helps preserve the liquid against spoilage.
Shallots
Add savoury depth and aromatic sweetness to the simmered liquid.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma and savoury flavour to the ketchup.

The step that matters

Boiling and skimming the liquid. Boiling the strained liquid and skimming off scum removes impurities that can cause spoilage. If the ketchup ferments, it must be boiled and skimmed again to keep it stable during its long rest.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, shallot, clove, pepper, garlic):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, shallot, clove, pepper, garlic. 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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