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Elderberry Catsup

A fermented elderberry ketchup made with vinegar, anchovies, spices, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,152 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Elderberry Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Steep the berries

  1. Pick the elderberries from the stalks and place them in a large stone jar.

  2. Scald the vinegar and pour it over the berries.

  3. Cover the jar with a pane of glass and set it in the hot sun for two days.

Cook and bottle

  1. Strain the liquid and boil it with the other ingredients for one hour, stirring often and keeping covered.

  2. Let it cool, then strain again and bottle the catsup.

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. Mace + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Ginger + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Vinegar + gingertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,126 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Vinegar + macetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,415 recipes

Ginger and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Elderberries
Provide the main fruit flavour, colour and body of the ketchup.
Vinegar
Extracts flavour from the berries and adds the sharp acidity that preserves the ketchup.
Anchovies
Add a salty, savoury depth that rounds out the sweet and sour notes.
White sugar
Balances the acidity and sharpness of the vinegar and berries with sweetness.

The step that matters

Boil with the other ingredients, stirring often. Boiling for the full hour concentrates the liquid and drives off raw vinegar sharpness. Stirring and covering help prevent scorching on the bottom of the pan and keep the flavours blending evenly.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, ginger, 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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