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Mushroom Ketchup

A fermented mushroom condiment seasoned with salt, wine, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Cut off part of the stalk from the mushrooms and wash them clean.

  2. Drain the mushrooms and bruise them slightly in a marble mortar.

  3. Place the mushrooms in an earthen vessel with a moderate amount of coarse sea salt and let them sit for four days.

  4. Strain the mixture through a fine cloth after the sediment has settled.

Make the ketchup

  1. Pour the liquid into a saucepan and add ⅓ cup of red port wine, a little whole allspice, cloves, mace, and black pepper.

  2. Boil the mixture for twenty minutes, then skim and strain the ketchup.

  3. Once cooled, transfer the ketchup into small bottles and cork them tightly.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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 flavor of the ketchup as they break down in salt.
Coarse sea salt
Draws liquid out of the mushrooms and preserves them during the long resting period.
Red port wine
Adds sweetness, body and depth of flavor to the finished ketchup.

The step that matters

Salting and resting the mushrooms. Enough coarse salt must be used so it draws out the mushroom liquid and protects the mixture during the four-day rest. Too little salt can let spoilage start before the liquid is extracted.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, port wine, allspice, clove, 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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