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Sauce

Walnut Catsup of the Finest Sort

A savory sauce made from walnut juice, anchovies, shallots, cloves, mace, pepper, and garlic.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Catsup of the Finest Sort

Ingredients

Directions

Make the ketchup

  1. Boil the walnut juice and skim it well.

  2. Add anchovies, shallots, cloves, mace, pepper, and garlic.

  3. Simmer until the shallots sink.

  4. Cool the mixture in a pan.

Bottle and seal

  1. Bottle the liquid, dividing the spices evenly.

  2. Cork tightly and tie a bladder over the top.

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 juice
Forms the liquid base and gives the ketchup its characteristic flavour.
Anchovies
Adds deep savoury flavour that builds umami in the finished liquid.
Shallots
Contribute aromatic sweetness and body as they soften during simmering.
Cloves
Add warm, pungent aroma to the spiced liquid.
Mace
Adds a delicate warm aroma that complements the other spices.
Pepper
Adds sharp, pungent heat and aroma to the liquid.

The step that matters

Simmer until the shallots sink. Simmering concentrates the liquid and softens the shallots so their flavour releases fully. Stopping too early leaves the mixture thin and under-flavoured, while the sinking shallots signal they have softened and given up their moisture and flavour.

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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