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Walnut Ketchup

A condiment made from walnut shells, spices, and walnut liquor.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove 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 ↓

Walnut Ketchup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liquor

  1. Place green walnut shells in a pan and sprinkle with ½ pound of coarse sea salt.

  2. Let the mixture stand for a week, bruising and mashing it twice a day.

  3. After a week, press the mixture to extract the clear liquor.

Spice and simmer

  1. In an iron pot, simmer the walnut liquor and skim off any scum.

  2. Add 1 ounce of allspice, ½ ounce of long pepper, 1 ounce of bruised ginger, and ½ ounce of cloves to every 3 pints of walnut liquor.

  3. Boil slowly with the spices for 45 minutes.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + clovetop 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. Pepper + clovetop 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

Green walnut shells
Provide the main flavour base and the liquor that becomes the ketchup.
Coarse sea salt
Draws liquid out of the shells and preserves the mixture during the week of standing.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the simmered liquor.
Long pepper
Contributes pungent, peppery heat and aroma to the spiced liquor.
Bruised ginger
Adds aromatic, pungent warmth that rounds out the spice blend.
Cloves
Adds intense aromatic spice flavour that carries through the long simmer.

The step that matters

Skimming the simmering liquor. Scum rising from the liquor contains impurities and proteins that can cloud the ketchup and spoil its clean flavour, so it should be removed as it forms.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Beansfits about as well
  4. Cashew nutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against allspice, pepper, 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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