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Mushroom Catsup

A fermented mushroom sauce seasoned with salt, spices, and brandy.

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

Mushroom Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the mushrooms

  1. Choose fresh, full-grown mushrooms and layer them in a deep pan with salt, alternating layers.

  2. Let them sit for a few hours, then mash them by hand and place in a cool spot for three days, stirring occasionally.

Spice and cook

  1. Measure the mushroom liquor without straining and add the spices accordingly.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a stone jar, cover tightly, and place in a saucepan of boiling water for three hours.

  3. Pour the contents into a clean stewpan and simmer gently for half an hour.

Strain and bottle

  1. Let it cool overnight, then pour off into another jug, straining into clean bottles without squeezing the mushrooms.

  2. Add a few drops of brandy to each pint of catsup, cork well, and seal to exclude air.

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 + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  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 bulk of the liquid and the savoury, umami-rich body of the ketchup.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the mushrooms and preserves the mixture during the long salting.
Mace
Adds warm, aromatic flavour that rounds out the mushroom base.
Allspice
Contributes warm, clove-like aroma to the seasoned liquid.
Cayenne pepper
Adds heat that balances the earthy richness of the mushrooms.

The step that matters

Sealing the bottles against air. Air exposure lets the ketchup spoil or oxidise over time, so the brandy addition and tight corking help preserve it once bottled.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, pepper, allspice, ginger, brandy. 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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