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Anchovy Ketchup

A sauce of anchovies steeped in stale ale with spices and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Anchovy Ketchup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the ketchup

  1. In a stewpan, combine stale ale and anchovies.

  2. Add mace, cloves, allspice, Cayenne pepper, ginger, loaf sugar, eschalots, and mushrooms.

  3. Simmer slowly for 1 hour.

  4. Pour the mixture through a jelly bag.

Bottle and store

  1. Once cold, bottle, cork, and seal it.

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. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + peppertop 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

Anchovies
Dissolve into the liquid to give the ketchup a deep, savory, umami base.
Stale ale
Serves as the liquid base that extracts flavor from the anchovies and spices.
Mushrooms
Add earthy, savory body that rounds out the umami flavor.
Eschalots
Contribute aromatic sharpness that mellows during the long simmer.
Loaf sugar
Balances the salt and sharpness of the anchovies with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly for 1 hour. A gentle simmer extracts flavor from the solids without scorching or breaking them down unevenly. A rolling boil can make the liquid cloudy and bitter, and it can reduce too much liquid before the flavors have combined.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

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