Skip to main content
Main

Walnut Ketchup

A fermented walnut-based condiment made with salt, pepper, shallots, mustard, mace, cloves, vinegar, and anchovies.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Shallot and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 859 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Walnut Ketchup

Ingredients

Directions

Steep the walnut shells

  1. Take the green shells of ripe walnuts and add 1 lb. of coarse sea salt.

  2. Stir well and let sit for 3-4 days, stirring occasionally.

  3. Boil 1 gallon of water with 1 lb. of coarse sea salt and pour it over the walnut shells while hot.

  4. Let stand for 8-10 days and then pour off the liquid.

Make the ketchup

  1. Boil the mixture for 1 hour.

  2. Add long pepper, black pepper, shallots, brown mustard seed, mace, cloves, and vinegar towards the end.

  3. Add the anchovies and pour the mixture into a jar or cask.

  4. Strain and bottle after 2-3 months.

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 + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together859 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  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. Mace + clovetop 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

Green walnut shells
Provide the dark colour and bitter, astringent flavour that defines the ketchup.
Anchovies
Add savoury depth and umami that rounds out the sharp spices and vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the liquid and sharpens the overall flavour.
Coarse sea salt
Draws liquid out of the shells and helps preserve the mixture.
Brown mustard seed
Contributes pungent, sharp heat that gives the ketchup its bite.

The step that matters

Pouring off the liquid after steeping. Salt draws juices from the shells over several days, and the liquid must be separated before boiling. Stopping the steep too early leaves the extract weak, while the long salt contact is what builds the flavour base.

Swap the mace

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

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

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

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes