Why it works: Ginger and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓
Mushroom Catchup
Ingredients
Directions
Salt the mushrooms
Layer mushrooms in an earthen bowl, sprinkling each layer with salt.
Let sit in a cool, dry place for 6 hours, mixing and mashing them occasionally.
Cover with a towel and let sit for 3 days, stirring occasionally.
Drain the juice into an earthen jar.
Spice and cook
For each quart of juice, add ginger, allspice, cayenne pepper, and ground mace.
Cover the jar tightly and place it in a saucepan with cold water.
Bring to a boil and maintain boiling for 6 hours, adding boiling water as needed.
Pour the catchup into a saucepan and boil slowly for 30 minutes, skimming off any foam.
Cool and bottle
Transfer to an earthen bowl and let cool in a cool place.
Once cold and clear, pour off the liquid without disturbing the sediment and bottle it in tightly-corked bottles.
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.
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Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,620 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together6,395 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,189 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
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Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together6,800 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Mushrooms
- Provide the bulk of the liquid that becomes the ketchup once salted and drawn out.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws water out of the mushrooms and preserves the juice during the long resting period.
- Ginger
- Adds warm, aromatic pungency to the finished sauce.
- Cayenne pepper
- Adds heat that gives the ketchup its sharp, spicy bite.
The step that matters
Maintaining the boil in the sealed jar. The jar must stay tightly covered and the water bath must keep boiling for the full 6 hours. Gentle, sustained heat extracts flavor from the spices and concentrates the liquid, while adding boiling water keeps the bath from running dry and the heat even.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, ginger, allspice, pepper):
- Clovefits better
- Thymefits better
- Turmericfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, ginger, allspice, pepper. 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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