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Mushroom Catsup

A fermented mushroom sauce seasoned with salt, pepper, and allspice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mushroom Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the mushrooms

  1. Pack mushrooms in layers in an earthen pot, sprinkling a little coarse sea salt between each layer.

  2. Let them sit for about three hours.

  3. Pound the mushrooms with a potato masher.

  4. Let them sit for a day, stirring once or twice with your hand.

Season and cook

  1. To each quart of the mixture, add 1 teaspoon of black pepper and ½ teaspoon of allspice.

  2. Cover the jar with the mixture.

  3. Place it in a pan of boiling water and boil for two hours.

  4. Strain the mixture through a cloth.

  5. Boil it down until reduced by half, or for 30 minutes for a lighter catsup.

Bottle

  1. Cork the catsup tightly.

  2. Do not make large quantities, as it does not keep well in warm weather.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Mushroom + allspicetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together717 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Provide the main body and savory umami flavor of the ketchup.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the mushrooms and seasons them as they break down.
Black pepper
Adds mild heat and a sharp, aromatic note to the finished ketchup.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes that round out the seasoning.

The step that matters

Boiling down the strained liquid. Reducing by half concentrates flavor and thickens the ketchup. Boiling too briefly leaves it thin and weak, while over-reducing can make it overly dense. The shorter time gives a lighter catsup.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, 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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