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Mushroom Ketchup

A fermented mushroom sauce made by salting, boiling, and spicing fresh mushrooms.

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 Ketchup

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the mushrooms

  1. Layer fresh mushrooms with coarse sea salt in an earthenware crock and let stand for four days.

  2. Mash the mushrooms finely.

Cook and strain

  1. Add 2-3 teaspoons of black pepper for each quart of mushrooms.

  2. Boil the mixture in a crock set in a kettle of boiling water for 2 hours.

  3. Strain the liquid through a thin cloth without squeezing.

Spice and bottle

  1. Add ½ ounce allspice, 1 teaspoon chopped green ginger root, and 1 teaspoon cloves to each pint of strained liquid.

  2. Boil the mixture for 15 minutes.

  3. Let the mixture cool and settle.

  4. Pour the liquid into Perfect Seal jars, leaving out the settleings.

  5. Seal the jars with rubbers and tops.

  6. Sterilize the jars in a boiler for 1 hour.

  7. Press down the spring and remove the jars from the boiler.

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. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

Fresh mushrooms
Provide the bulk of the liquid that becomes the ketchup's savory base.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the mushrooms and preserves them during the four-day standing.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, pungent heat that rounds out the savory flavor.
Allspice
Contributes warm, aromatic spice notes to the finished ketchup.
Green ginger root
Adds a bright, pungent aroma that lifts the earthy mushroom flavor.
Cloves
Adds intense warm aroma that deepens the spiced character of the ketchup.

The step that matters

Strain without squeezing. Pressing the cloth forces solids through and makes the liquid cloudy with fine particles that settle later and can spoil the clear ketchup.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, pepper, allspice, 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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