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Sauce

Walnut Catsup

A fermented walnut sauce with anchovies, garlic, spices, and vinegar, aged for up to 12 years.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Walnut Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Pound the walnuts in a mortar, adding the salt as you go.

  2. Pour in the vinegar and let the mixture sit until the walnuts turn black, stirring 3-4 times a day.

Make the ketchup

  1. Add the beer and boil the mixture for 10 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture and let it sit overnight to settle.

  3. Pour off the clear liquid from the sediment.

  4. Add the anchovies, garlic, nutmeg, cloves, black pepper, and mace to the liquid.

  5. Boil the mixture for 30 minutes.

  6. Bottle and cork the catsup well. It will keep for up to 12 years.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Walnut + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Walnuts
Provide the dark colour and the strong, earthy flavour that defines the ketchup.
Salt
Draws moisture out of the walnuts and helps preserve the mixture.
Vinegar
Acts as the acidic base that extracts flavour and helps preserve the ketchup.
Beer
Adds body and malty depth to the liquid.
Anchovies
Contribute savoury, umami depth that rounds out the flavour.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma and savoury sharpness.

The step that matters

Letting the walnuts sit in vinegar until they turn black. The walnuts must steep long enough for their juices and pigments to darken and release flavour into the vinegar. Stirring several times a day keeps the walnut pieces evenly exposed to the acid, so the extraction is uniform.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, vinegar, beer, garlic, nutmeg, clove, pepper. 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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