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Walnut Catsup

A preserved walnut ketchup made by pounding walnuts, salting, and fermenting with vinegar, spices, and peppers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg 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 Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnut liquid

  1. Pound the green walnuts to a mass.

  2. Add ¾ pound of coarse sea salt and 1 quart of vinegar.

  3. Stir the mixture daily for 14 days.

  4. Strain and squeeze the mixture through a cloth and set aside the liquid.

  5. Add ½ pint of vinegar to the husks and let stand overnight.

  6. Strain and squeeze again as before.

  7. Combine the reserved liquid with the new liquid.

Spice and bottle

  1. Add whole peppers, cloves, nutmeg, and ginger.

  2. Boil for 30 minutes, covered.

  3. Strain the mixture.

  4. Let it cool.

  5. Bottle and cork securely.

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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 and the dark, bitter-savoury flavour base of the ketchup.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the walnuts and preserves the mixture against spoilage.
Vinegar
Acts as the main liquid and preservative, adding acidity that keeps the ketchup stable.
Cloves
Add warm, aromatic spice notes that give the ketchup its depth.
Nutmeg
Adds a warm, sweet aroma that rounds out the spiced flavour.

The step that matters

Straining and squeezing the mixture through a cloth. Pressing out as much liquid as possible from the pounded husks concentrates the flavour and yields a clearer ketchup. Leaving solids behind keeps the bottled liquid from turning cloudy or gritty over time.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Cashew nutfits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

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