Name: Double Mushroom Catsup
Ingredients: 1 gallon fresh mushrooms; 3 ounces coarse sea salt; 1 quart ready-made mushroom catsup; 1 ounce whole black pepper; 1.5 teaspoons ground mace; 1 ounce ground ginger; 3 to 4 grains cayenne pepper

Why it works: Pepper and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,800 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Double Mushroom Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Salt and stand

Strew the salt over the mushrooms and pour in the mushroom catsup.
Stir occasionally for four days.

Boil the liquid

Drain the liquid from the mushrooms and boil it for fifteen minutes with the black pepper, mace, ginger, and cayenne.

Cool and bottle

Let it cool before bottling.

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.

Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,800 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,580 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Mace + gingertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,152 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Mushroom + gingertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together867 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together12,257 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh mushrooms: Release their liquid during salting, forming the savory body of the sauce.
Coarse sea salt: Draws water out of the mushrooms and helps preserve the sauce.
Mushroom catsup: Adds concentrated mushroom flavor and savory depth.
Whole black pepper: Adds sharp pungency that mellows during boiling.
Ground mace: Contributes warm, aromatic flavor.
Ground ginger: Adds aromatic warmth and a light bite.