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Another Good Receipt Por Walnut Catsup

A walnut-based condiment made by steeping walnuts with aromatics, then clarifying and bottling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Another Good Receipt Por Walnut Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Steep the walnuts

  1. Bruise the walnuts in a large marble mortar until broken.

  2. Place the bruised walnuts in a stone jar with the eschalots, garlic, salt, and vinegar.

  3. Let the mixture stand for 10 days, stirring twice daily.

  4. Strain the liquid from the jar.

Boil and bottle

  1. Boil the strained liquid for 30 minutes with anchovies, black pepper, cloves, and mace.

  2. Skim the liquid.

  3. Strain the liquid again.

  4. Let the liquid cool.

  5. Pour the liquid from the sediment into small dry bottles.

  6. Cork the bottles securely.

  7. Store the bottles in a dry place.

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 + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Garlic + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Green walnuts
Provide the bitter, tannin-rich base flavour that gives the catsup its character.
Vinegar
Acts as the preserving liquid and extracts flavour from the walnuts and aromatics over the long steep.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out and helps preserve the mixture during the long standing period.
Anchovies
Add savoury depth, umami, and body to the finished liquid.
Eschalots
Contribute pungent, savoury onion flavour that mellows during steeping.

The step that matters

Boiling the strained liquid. Boiling for the full 30 minutes with the spices and anchovies extracts their flavour into the liquid and helps stabilise it for storage. Skimming removes foam and impurities that would otherwise cloud or spoil the catsup.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, garlic, vinegar, pepper, 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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