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Anchovy Ketchup

A fermented anchovy sauce made with ale, shallots, mushroom ketchup, sugar, ginger, mace, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Anchovy Ketchup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the ketchup

  1. Combine all ingredients in a saucepan.

  2. Simmer gently for about 1 hour.

  3. Strain the mixture.

Bottle and store

  1. Once cool, pour the ketchup into small bottles.

  2. Cork the bottles tightly and store in a cool, dry place.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Shallot + gingertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together565 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Dissolve during simmering to give the ketchup its deep, salty, savoury backbone.
Ale
Forms the liquid base that extracts and carries the flavours of the other ingredients.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury depth that rounds out the anchovy flavour.
Castor sugar
Adds a little sweetness to balance the salt and savoury notes.
Shallots
Contribute aromatic sharpness that mellows as they cook into the liquid.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for about 1 hour. A gentle simmer slowly draws flavour from the anchovies, shallots and spices without reducing the liquid too fast. A hard boil can scorch the solids and make the finished ketchup taste bitter or harsh.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, mushroom, ketchup, sugar, ginger, 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.

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