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Mushroom Catsup

A preserved mushroom ketchup made by layering mushrooms, salting, mashing, and boiling with spices and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Wipe mushrooms with a damp cloth and layer them in a large stone jar, sprinkling each layer with salt.

  2. Let the mushrooms stand overnight, then mash and strain off the juice.

Cook the ketchup

  1. For every pint of juice, add black pepper, cloves, and allspice.

  2. Boil the mixture slowly in a preserve kettle until thick.

  3. Strain and thin with 2 tablespoons of vinegar for every pint.

  4. Bottle and seal the catsup.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

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

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 savoury umami flavour of the ketchup.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the mushrooms, releasing the juice and preserving the mixture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps preserve the ketchup.
Black pepper
Adds a sharp, warm spiciness that rounds out the savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture slowly in a preserve kettle until thick. Slow boiling reduces the juice by evaporation, concentrating flavour and building body. Boiling too fast or too briefly can scorch the sugars or leave the sauce thin and less stable for storage.

Swap the allspice

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, pepper, clove, vinegar. 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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