Skip to main content
Main

Walnut Ketchup

A fermented walnut sauce made by soaking walnut shells, boiling with spices, and bottling for later use.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the walnut liquor

  1. Place walnut shells in a pan with water and a large amount of salt; let them soak for 10 days.

  2. Break the shells in the water and drain through a sieve, pressing down with a heavy weight to extract the juice.

Season and boil

  1. Boil the liquid with the shallots, cloves, mace, pepper, and garlic, skimming off any scum that forms.

  2. Simmer until the shallots sink, then transfer the liquid to a pan.

Bottle and age

  1. Once cool, bottle and cork tightly.

  2. Let it stand for 6 months before using.

  3. If it ferments, boil and skim again.

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 shells
Provide the main flavour and dark colour as they soak and release their juice.
Salt
Draws juice from the shells and helps preserve the liquid during long soaking.
Shallots
Add savoury depth and body to the liquid as they cook down.
Garlic
Adds pungent savoury aroma that mellows during boiling and ageing.
Whole pepper
Contributes sharp, aromatic heat that complements the walnut flavour.

The step that matters

Boiling and skimming before bottling. Boiling the liquid with the spices and skimming off scum removes proteins and impurities that could cause fermentation, so the ketchup keeps better in the bottle.

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

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