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Walnut Ketchup

A fermented walnut condiment made with walnuts, shallots, garlic, salt, vinegar, anchovies, pepper, cloves, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,000 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Walnut Ketchup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Pound the walnuts in a mortar until well bruised.

  2. Put the walnuts in a jar with chopped shallots, garlic, salt, and vinegar.

Steep

  1. Stir the mixture every day for ten days.

Boil and bottle

  1. Strain the liquid and boil it with the other ingredients for 30-40 minutes, skimming well.

  2. Strain again and, when cold, pour into small, dry bottles and cork securely.

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. Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  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

Young green walnuts
Provide the main flavour and dark colour of the ketchup as they steep.
Shallots
Add savoury sharpness and aroma to the liquid.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the walnuts and helps preserve the mixture.
Vinegar
Extracts flavour from the walnuts and acts as the preserving liquid.
Anchovies
Add deep savoury flavour that rounds out the sauce.

The step that matters

Boiling with skimming. Boiling the strained liquid for 30-40 minutes concentrates flavour and drives off harshness. Skimming removes foam and impurities that would otherwise cloud the ketchup and spoil its clarity over time.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, shallot, 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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