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Walnut Catsup

A walnut-based condiment made by mixing walnuts with salt and vinegar, then steeping and bottling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Gooseberry and clove share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Walnut Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Wipe the walnuts and slice them.

  2. Pound the walnuts with the salt in a mortar.

Steep and bottle

  1. Boil the gooseberry vinegar and pour it over the walnuts.

  2. Let it stand for two days, then strain and bottle it.

  3. If desired, pour an additional quart of vinegar over the walnuts after the first is drawn off.

  4. Add a clove of garlic to each 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. Gooseberry + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together15 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Walnut + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Vinegar + garlictop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Walnut + gooseberrytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8 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

Walnuts
Provide the main flavour and dark colour of the ketchup as they steep.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the walnuts and helps preserve the mixture.
Gooseberry vinegar
Extracts flavour from the walnuts and gives the ketchup its acidity for preservation.
Garlic
Adds aromatic pungency to the finished ketchup.

The step that matters

Pounding the walnuts with the salt. Pounding breaks the walnut cells and mixes the salt through the nuts, drawing out juices and starting the extraction that gives the ketchup its body and flavour. Crushing them thoroughly lets the vinegar work on more surface area.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against gooseberry, vinegar, clove, 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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