Skip to main content
Main

Mushroom Ketchup or Catsup

A fermented mushroom sauce made by crushing mushrooms, seasoning, and boiling with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and allspice 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 or Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Draw out the juices

  1. Combine the crushed mushrooms and salt in a bowl and let it stand for 34 hours.

  2. Drain the liquid from the mixture.

Spice, simmer and bottle

  1. Add the cloves, peppercorns, and allspice to the liquid.

  2. Boil gently for 30 minutes.

  3. Bottle the mixture and cork it when cold.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  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

Field mushrooms
Releases its liquid with salt, forming the base of the ketchup and adding savoury depth.
Cloves
Adds warm, pungent aroma that flavours the simmered liquid.
Peppercorns
Adds sharp, peppery heat that rounds out the savoury flavour.
Allspice
Contributes a sweet, warm aroma blending clove and pepper notes.

The step that matters

Boil gently for 30 minutes. A gentle simmer extracts the spice flavours steadily, while a hard, rapid boil reduces the liquid unevenly and can make the spices taste harsh.

Swap the allspice

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, 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.

More mushroom ketchup recipes

Sauce 4 See all 229 →

You might also like

Mushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes