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Walnut Catsup

A walnut-based condiment made with anchovies, garlic, spices, vinegar, and beer.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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

Steep the walnuts

  1. Pound 100 young walnuts in a mortar, mixing in ½ pound of coarse sea salt.

  2. Pour in 1 quart of strong vinegar and let it sit until the walnuts turn black, stirring 3-4 times a day.

Strain and clear

  1. Add 1 quart of strong old beer and boil the mixture for 10 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture and let it sit overnight to settle.

Season and bottle

  1. Pour off the clear liquid from the sediment and add ½ pound of anchovies, 1 bruised head of garlic, ½ ounce of bruised nutmeg, ¼ ounce of cloves, ½ ounce of black pepper, and 2 teaspoons of mace.

  2. Boil the mixture for 30 minutes, then bottle and cork it well.

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. 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

Walnuts
Provide the dark colour and the bitter, astringent base flavour as the juice darkens.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the ketchup.
Anchovies
Add a salty, savoury depth that dissolves into the liquid during boiling.
Old beer
Adds malty depth and some bitterness to round out the sharp vinegar.
Garlic
Adds a pungent aroma and savoury background flavour.

The step that matters

Letting the walnuts turn black in the vinegar. The colour and sharp flavour develop slowly as walnut tannins react with the acid and air over several days. Stopping too early leaves a pale, weak ketchup, and regular stirring keeps the walnut pieces evenly exposed.

Swap the mace

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

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

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

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