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Sauce

Walnut Catchup

A walnut shell sauce made by mashing shells with salt, simmering with spices, and bottling after one year of storage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Walnut Catchup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liquid

  1. Combine walnut-shells and salt in a tub, mixing well.

  2. Let the mixture stand for 6 days, mashing and beating it frequently.

  3. Once the shells are soft and pulpy, bank the mixture to one side of the tub to drain the liquid.

  4. Collect the drained liquid, repeating the mashing and banking until no more liquid is found.

  5. You should have about 6 quarts of liquid.

Simmer and spice

  1. Simmer the liquid in an iron boiler until scum forms.

  2. Add the bruised ginger, allspice, long pepper, and cloves to the simmering liquid.

  3. Boil slowly for 30 minutes.

Bottle and store

  1. Bottle the mixture, adding an equal amount of spice to each bottle.

  2. Seal the bottles tightly and store in a cool, dry place for 1 year before using.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Green walnut-shells
Provide the main flavour and the liquid that is drained out to make the chutney base.
Salt
Draws liquid out of the soft shells and helps preserve the mixture during its long standing.
Ginger
Adds warm, pungent aroma to the simmered liquid.
Cloves
Adds strong aromatic warmth to the spiced liquid.

The step that matters

Let the mixture stand and drain fully. Mashing and beating the shells during the six-day standing softens them so more liquid releases. Repeating the banking until no liquid remains gives the full yield. Stopping early leaves the base weak and watery.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ginger, allspice, pepper, clove):

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Beansfits about as well
  4. Cashew nutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, allspice, 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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