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Walnut-Ketchup

A preserved condiment made from ground walnuts, anchovies, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Walnut-Ketchup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnut juice

  1. Pound green walnuts in a mortar with salt.

  2. Squeeze out the juice and let it stand to settle.

  3. Pour off the clear juice and boil it.

Make the ketchup

  1. Add anchovies, mace, cloves, Jamaica pepper, shallots, and vinegar to the boiled juice.

  2. Boil until the anchovies dissolve.

  3. Strain the mixture and bottle it.

Store

  1. When cold, cork it tightly and tie it down with leather or bladder.

  2. Store in a dry place.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Walnut + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Green walnuts
Provide the bulk of the juice and the dark, bitter-tannic flavour that defines the ketchup.
Anchovies
Dissolve during boiling to add savoury depth and umami to the liquid.
Shallots
Add a sharp, aromatic onion note that rounds out the spiced liquid.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the ketchup.

The step that matters

Boiling until the anchovies dissolve. The anchovies must break down fully into the liquid. Undissolved pieces leave gritty texture and uneven flavour, and the boil also drives off raw notes from the vinegar and juice.

Swap the mace

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

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

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