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Pontac Ketchup for Fish

A fermented elderberry ketchup for fish, made with vinegar, spices, anchovies, and sealed in bottles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,677 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Pontac Ketchup for Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the elderberries

  1. Remove elderberries from the stalk.

  2. Place them in a stone jar.

  3. Add enough strong vinegar to cover the elderberries.

  4. Bake the jar with bread until hot.

Make the ketchup

  1. Strain the mixture.

  2. Boil the strained liquid with cloves, mace, peppercorns, and shallots to enhance flavor.

  3. Add ½ pound of anchovies for every quart of liquid.

  4. Stir until dissolved.

Bottle

  1. Transfer the ketchup into pint bottles.

  2. Seal with double bladders over each cork.

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. Clove + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mace + shallottop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

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

What each ingredient does

Elderberries
Provide the main fruit flavour and deep colour of the ketchup.
Strong vinegar
Extracts and preserves the fruit, adding sharp acidity.
Anchovies
Dissolve into the liquid to add savoury, umami depth.
Shallots
Add a mild aromatic onion note to the boiled liquid.

The step that matters

Adding the anchovies to the liquid. Anchovies must be fully dissolved into the hot strained liquid so they blend evenly; undissolved pieces leave a gritty texture and uneven saltiness.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, clove, 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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