Why it works: Allspice and ginger 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 ↓
Old English Recipe for Mushroom Catsup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Layer mushrooms and salt in an earthenware pan, alternating between the two, and let sit for 6 hours.
Break the mixture into bits and set it in a cool place for 3 days, stirring thoroughly each morning.
Strain the juice and measure it.
For every quart of juice, add ½ ounce of allspice, ½ ounce of ginger, ½ teaspoon of powdered mace, and 1 teaspoon of cayenne.
Cook and bottle
Transfer the mixture to a stone jar, cover it tightly, and place it in a saucepan of boiling water.
Boil hard for 5 hours.
Remove from heat and pour into a porcelain kettle.
Boil slowly for an additional 30 minutes.
Let it sit overnight in a cool place until it settles and becomes clear.
Carefully pour off the clear liquid from the sediment and bottle it, filling the bottle to the top.
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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Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,620 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 + macetop 11% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,152 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Mushroom + gingertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together867 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Mushroom + allspicetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Break down over salt to release their juice, which forms the base of the ketchup.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the mushrooms and helps preserve the juice during its long standing.
- Allspice
- Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor to the juice.
- Ginger
- Adds a warm, pungent aroma and spicy note to the juice.
- Powdered mace
- Adds a delicate, aromatic warmth to the seasoned juice.
- Cayenne
- Adds heat and pungency to balance the savory mushroom flavor.
The step that matters
Keeping the long boil gentle after the hard boil. Boiling hard for 5 hours in a stone jar set in boiling water concentrates the liquid and drives off moisture, while the slower second boil in a porcelain kettle reduces the risk of scorching and sediment mixing back in before the overnight settling.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, allspice, ginger):
- Clovefits better
- Cinnamonfits better
- Thymefits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, allspice, ginger. 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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