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Sauce

Oyster Ketchup

A sauce made by boiling oysters, pounding them, and seasoning with mace and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,580 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Oyster Ketchup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the oyster liquor

  1. Remove gills from the oysters and boil them in their liquor.

  2. Strain the liquid and pound the oysters in a mortar.

  3. Boil the gills in spring water, then strain it into the oyster liquor.

Finish the ketchup

  1. Combine the pounded oysters with the mixed liquors, mace, and pepper.

  2. Add a few drops of mushroom ketchup, vinegar, or lemon juice if desired, but use sparingly.

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. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Oyster + mushroomtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,299 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Mace + mushroomtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,529 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Oyster + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,663 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main body and savory flavor of the ketchup once pounded.
Spring water
Extracts flavor from the oyster gills and thins the mixture into a liquid.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice note that complements the oysters.
Pepper
Adds gentle heat and sharpness to balance the oyster flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the optional acid. Mushroom ketchup, vinegar, or lemon juice are strong and can overpower the delicate oyster flavor, so they should be added a few drops at a time and tasted between additions.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, pepper, mushroom):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, pepper, mushroom. 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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