Name: Walnut Catsup
Ingredients: 100 young walnuts; 6 ounces fine anchovies; 4 ounces eschalots (shallots); ½ ounce black pepper; ¼ ounce cloves; 1 teaspoon mace; Vinegar (to taste)

Why it works: Pepper and clove 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 Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Pound the young walnuts in a mortar.
Boil the expressed juice of the walnuts for 1 hour with the anchovies, eschalots, black pepper, cloves, and mace.
Strain the mixture and add vinegar to taste.

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.

Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,677 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Walnut + shallottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together440 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,400 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
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

Young walnuts: Provide the juice that forms the dark, bitter-savoury base of the ketchup.
Anchovies: Add deep savoury umami flavour that builds the body of the sauce.
Eschalots (shallots): Contribute mild onion-like aroma and sweetness as they cook down.
Black pepper: Adds sharp, warm aroma and gentle heat to the sauce.
Cloves: Add warm, aromatic spice notes that round out the flavour.
Mace: Contributes delicate warm, nutmeg-like aroma to the sauce.

Swap the mace

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

Tarragonfits better
Allspicefits better
Thymefits better
Macethe original

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