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Walnut Catsup

A walnut-based condiment made by steeping walnuts, shallots, garlic, and vinegar, then simmering with anchovies, pepper, mace, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Remove the gills from the walnuts in a large mortar until thoroughly broken.

Steep

  1. Combine the walnuts, shallots, garlic, vinegar, and salt in a jar.

  2. Let the mixture stand for 2 weeks, stirring twice a day.

  3. Strain the mixture.

Simmer and bottle

  1. Pour the liquid into a saucepan with anchovies, whole pepper, cloves, and mace.

  2. Boil for 30 minutes, skimming off any foam.

  3. Strain again.

  4. When cool, pour the liquid into small bottles, leaving sediment behind.

  5. Seal the bottles tightly.

  6. Store in a dry place.

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. 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

Walnuts
Crushed walnuts release oils and flavour into the vinegar during the long steeping.
Vinegar
Acts as the main liquid and preservative, extracting flavour from the solids over time.
Salt
Draws moisture out of the shallots and garlic and helps preserve the mixture.
Anchovies
Add savoury depth, a salty umami background that rounds out the sauce.

The step that matters

Straining after the two-week steep. Straining off the solids before boiling leaves a clear liquid; leftover fine particles would cloud the ketchup and can spoil it sooner.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

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