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Cockle Ketchup

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Cockle Ketchup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Open the cockles and scald them in their own liquor.

  2. If needed, add a little water to the liquor and let it settle.

  3. Strain the mixture through a cloth.

  4. Season with savoury spices.

  5. For brown sauce, add port, anchovies, and garlic; for white sauce, omit these and add sherry, lemon juice, lemon peel, mace, nutmeg, and white pepper.

  6. For brown sauce, burn a bit of sugar for coloring.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Garlic + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,893 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Nutmeg + white peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Swap the garlic

The recipe marks garlic as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sherry, sauce, lemon, mace, nutmeg, white pepper, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, sauce, lemon, mace, nutmeg, white pepper, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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