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Another, Fob Roast Meat, Steaks, or Chops

A sauce made by infusing mushroom or oyster ketchup with walnut pickle, Jamaica pepper, horseradish, shallot, and cayenne, then strained and mixed with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Horseradish and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 376 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Another, Fob Roast Meat, Steaks, or Chops

Ingredients

Directions

Make the infusion

  1. Combine mushroom or oyster ketchup, walnut pickle, Jamaica pepper, scraped horseradish, minced shallot, and cayenne in a jar.

  2. Infuse for ten days.

  3. Strain the mixture.

  4. Bottle the strained mixture for use.

Serve

  1. Add 1 to 2 tablespoons of the mixture to gravy for flavor.

  2. Melt butter.

  3. Mix the melted butter with the infused ketchup to make a sauce to pour over steaks or chops.

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. Horseradish + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together376 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Walnut + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Walnut + horseradishtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together259 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pepper + horseradishtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushroom ketchup or oyster ketchup
Provides a savoury, salty base that gives the sauce its main depth of flavour.
Walnut pickle
Adds a dark, tangy, slightly sweet acidity that balances the rich base.
Scraped horseradish
Contributes sharp, pungent heat that mellows as the mixture infuses.
Minced shallot
Adds a mild allium aroma and sharpness to the infused liquid.
Jamaica pepper
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes that round out the sauce's flavour.

Swap the walnut

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, pepper, horseradish, 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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