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Mushroom Catsup

A fermented mushroom sauce made by pressing and boiling mushroom juice with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mushroom Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the mushrooms

  1. Wash and cut the mushrooms into 2 to 4 pieces.

  2. Layer the mushrooms in a wide jar or crock, sprinkling each layer with salt.

  3. Let the mushrooms sit for 24 hours.

  4. Press out the juice and bottle it.

  5. Return the mushrooms to the jar.

  6. Let the mushrooms sit for another 24 hours.

  7. Press the mushrooms again and bottle the juice.

  8. Press the mushrooms one more time and bottle the juice.

Make the ketchup

  1. Combine all the extracted juice in a pot.

  2. Add pepper, allspice, and cloves to the pot.

  3. Boil the mixture.

  4. Skim off any scum that rises while boiling.

  5. Let the mixture cool.

  6. Bottle the mixture.

  7. Add 2 cloves and 1 peppercorn to each bottle.

  8. Cork and seal the bottles.

  9. Store the bottles in a 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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mushroom + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,663 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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
Form the base of the ketchup, releasing their liquid when salted and pressed.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the mushrooms and preserves the extracted juice.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic flavour to the simmered juice.
Cloves
Adds aromatic warmth to the simmered juice and to each bottle.

The step that matters

Salt the mushrooms in layers. Salt must be spread through every layer so the mushrooms release juice evenly and the salt concentration is high enough to inhibit spoilage while they sit for 24 hours.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, pepper, clove):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Allspicethe original
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, pepper, 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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