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Sauce

Anchovy Ketchup

A fermented anchovy sauce made with ale, shallots, mushroom ketchup, sugar, ginger, mace, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Anchovy Ketchup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the ketchup

  1. Combine all ingredients in a saucepan.

  2. Simmer gently for about 1 hour.

  3. Strain the mixture.

Bottle and store

  1. Once cool, pour the ketchup into small bottles.

  2. Cork the bottles tightly and store in a cool, 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. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Shallot + gingertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together565 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Provide the main salty, savoury body that the ketchup is built on.
Good ale
Forms the liquid base that the anchovies and spices simmer in.
Shallots
Add a mild aromatic sweetness and depth as they soften in the liquid.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury umami flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for about 1 hour. Gentle heat slowly breaks down the anchovies and softens the shallots, so their flavours dissolve into the liquid. A hard boil can reduce too fast, make the mixture bitter, and leave it unevenly flavoured.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, mushroom, ketchup, sugar, ginger, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, mushroom, ketchup, sugar, ginger, 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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