Skip to main content
Drink

Walnut Ketchup of the Finest Sort

A savory ketchup made from walnut juice, anchovies, shallots, cloves, mace, black pepper, and garlic.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 of the Finest Sort

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnut juice

  1. Boil or simmer the walnut juice and skim it well.

Make the ketchup

  1. Add the anchovies, shallots, cloves, mace, black pepper, and garlic.

  2. Simmer until the shallots sink.

  3. Pour the liquid into a pan and let it cool.

Bottle and seal

  1. Bottle the mixture, sharing the spices evenly.

  2. Cork the bottles tightly and cover with a bladder.

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. Clove + peppertop 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

Walnut juice
Forms the liquid base and carries the deep, savory flavour of the ketchup.
Anchovies
Dissolve during simmering to add salty, savoury depth without a fishy taste.
Shallots
Soften and release their sweetness and aromatic compounds into the liquid.
Cloves
Add warm, aromatic spice notes that preserve and flavour the mixture.
Mace
Contributes a warm, delicate aroma that complements the spices.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, pungent heat and aroma to the finished ketchup.

The step that matters

Skimming the walnut juice. Skimming removes foam and impurities that rise while the juice boils. Leaving them in can cloud the ketchup and spoil its flavour during storage.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, shallot, clove, pepper, garlic. 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.

You might also like

Vegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesRaspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipesBlackberry CordialBlackberry Cordial129 recipes