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Walnut Catchup

A walnut-based condiment made by soaking, mashing, and simmering walnuts with vinegar, spices, salt, 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 one peck of walnuts and break them into small pieces with a mallet.

  2. Place the walnut pieces in a jar with 1 pound of coarse sea salt and 2 quarts of cider vinegar.

  3. Let the mixture sit for three weeks.

Extract the liquid

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

  2. Soak the walnut pieces in 1 quart of vinegar for 24 hours.

  3. Mash the walnuts in the vinegar.

  4. Strain the liquid through a cloth, pressing it carefully.

Cook and bottle

  1. Combine all the liquid in a kettle with 1 ounce of black pepper, ¼ ounce of cloves, ½ ounce of ginger, ½ ounce of nutmeg, and 1 teacup of sugar.

  2. Boil the mixture for half an hour.

  3. Strain it again.

  4. When cool, bottle and seal the catchup.

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 flavour and body of the ketchup as they steep and break down in vinegar.
Cider vinegar
Acts as the solvent and preservative, extracting walnut flavour and keeping the ketchup stable.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the walnuts and helps preserve the mixture during its long soak.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar.
Black pepper
Contributes pungent, warm spice to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Straining after the boil. Solids left in the liquid can keep fermenting or spoiling, so the second straining produces a clear, stable sauce before bottling. Cooking it first also helps the flavours blend and the vinegar stay preserved.

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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