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Sauce

Walnut Ketchup

A fermented walnut condiment made with vinegar, salt, anchovies, and shallots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 440 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Walnut Ketchup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the green walnuts finely and place them in a large bowl.

  2. Add the vinegar, salt, anchovies, and chopped shallots to the bowl. Mix all the ingredients thoroughly.

Macerate and bottle

  1. Let the mixture sit for a few days to develop flavor.

  2. Strain the mixture through a fine cloth into a clean bottle.

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

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

  2. Vinegar + shallottop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Walnut + vinegartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Green walnuts
Provide the bulk of the flavor and the dark, astringent character of the ketchup.
Vinegar
Acts as the preserving liquid and adds sharp acidity that balances the walnuts.
Anchovies
Contribute savory depth and umami that rounds out the sauce.
Shallots
Add a mild sharpness and aromatic background to the mixture.
Salt
Seasons the mixture and helps draw out and preserve the ingredients.

The step that matters

Letting the mixture sit for a few days. Time allows the salt, vinegar and anchovies to slowly extract and blend flavors from the walnuts and shallots. Stopping early leaves the sauce harsh and unmellowed, while the acidity and salt help keep the mixture stable during the rest.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, shallot):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Black-eyed peafits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, shallot. 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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