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Ketchup, Mushroom

A fermented mushroom condiment made by steeping mushrooms, salt, pepper, and brandy, then boiling and bottling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,580 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Ketchup, Mushroom

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the mushrooms

  1. Layer freshly gathered mushrooms and coarse sea salt alternately in a deep earthen jar.

  2. Let them sit for 2-3 hours, then pound them well with your hands.

  3. Allow the mixture to sit for 2 days, stirring and mashing well each day.

Extract and boil the juice

  1. Pour the mixture into a stone jar and add 1 ounce of whole black pepper for every quart.

  2. Seal the jar and place it in a stewpan of hot water, boiling for 2 hours.

  3. Remove the jar and pour the juice through a sieve into a clean stewpan without squeezing the mushrooms.

  4. Boil the juice gently for 30 minutes, then strain it through a flannel.

Flavour and bottle

  1. Add 2 tablespoons of brandy for each pint of ketchup, then bottle it.

  2. Once cool, cork and seal the bottles, and store in a dry, cool place.

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

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

  2. Mushroom + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together206 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Pepper + brandytop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together934 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Large flap mushrooms
Release their juices through salting and mashing, forming the liquid base of the ketchup.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the mushrooms and preserves the mixture during the long resting period.
Whole black pepper
Adds a sharp, spicy aroma and flavour to the strained liquid.
Brandy
Adds alcohol that helps preserve the ketchup and contributes aroma.

The step that matters

Do not squeeze the mushrooms when straining. Squeezing forces out solids and cloudy material along with the juice, which makes the ketchup murky and can add grit. Letting the juice drain naturally keeps the final liquid clear and smooth.

“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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