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Walnut Ketchup

A preserved walnut condiment made with vinegar, spices, anchovies, and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Walnut Ketchup

Ingredients

Directions

Steep the walnuts

  1. Procure walnuts that can be pierced with a pin, slightly bruise them, and place in a jar with salt and vinegar.

  2. Let them stand for 8 days, stirring daily.

Make the ketchup

  1. Drain the liquid and boil it with the other ingredients for about 30 minutes.

  2. Strain if desired, and adjust with more vinegar or wine to taste.

  3. Bottle and seal the corks.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Walnut + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Walnuts
Provide the base flavour and body, releasing their oils and tannins into the vinegar over the long steep.
Vinegar
Acts as the preserving liquid and extracts flavour from the walnuts and spices, adding acidity.
Anchovies
Add a deep savoury, salty umami note that rounds out the sauce.
Shallots
Contribute sweetness and aromatic depth as they cook down in the liquid.
Port wine
Adds sweetness, fruitiness and body, and can be added to adjust the final balance.

The step that matters

Stirring the walnuts during the 8-day steep. Daily stirring keeps every walnut evenly submerged in the vinegar, so flavour extracts uniformly and no pieces spoil or stay pale. Walnuts exposed to air can darken and oxidise, so consistent contact with the liquid matters.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, vinegar, nutmeg, clove, ginger, pepper, horseradish. 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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