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Dessert

Walnut Catchup

A fermented walnut condiment made with vinegar, spices, and sugar.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Gather walnuts and break them into small pieces with a mallet.

  2. Combine walnuts, salt, and 2 quarts of cider vinegar in a jar; let sit for 3 weeks.

  3. Strain the mixture through a colander and set the liquid aside.

Extract the liquid

  1. Add 1 quart of vinegar to the walnut pieces and let sit for 24 hours.

  2. Mash the walnuts in the vinegar and strain through a cloth, pressing to extract liquid.

Cook and bottle

  1. Combine all liquids in a kettle with black pepper, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, and sugar.

  2. Boil for 30 minutes, then strain again.

  3. When cool, bottle and seal.

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. Ginger + nutmegtop 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

Walnuts
Provide the main body and deep, earthy flavour of the ketchup.
Cider vinegar
Acts as the solvent that extracts flavour from the walnuts and gives sharp acidity that preserves the sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Black pepper
Adds pungent, warm spice to the sauce.

The step that matters

Straining after the boil. Cooked walnut liquid can keep fine solids that cloud the sauce, and straining removes them so the ketchup stays smooth and clear before bottling.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Chestnutfits about as well
  2. Chickpeafits about as well
  3. Beansfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

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