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Mushroom Catchup

A fermented mushroom condiment made by layering, pounding, and simmering mushrooms with salt, pepper, and allspice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mushroom Catchup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Slice the mushrooms across their caps and stems.

  2. Layer the mushrooms in an earthen pan, sprinkling each layer with salt.

  3. Let the mushrooms sit for three hours.

  4. Pound the mushrooms in a mortar and let them sit for two days, stirring twice daily.

Make the ketchup

  1. Pour the mixture into jars, adding ½ ounce of whole black pepper and ½ ounce of allspice for each quart.

  2. Place the jars in a pot surrounded by boiling water and simmer for 2.5 hours.

  3. Remove the jars and strain the juice into a clean saucepan.

  4. Boil the juice for one more hour.

Bottle and store

  1. Pour the juice into rinsed bottles and let it cool overnight.

  2. Seal the bottles tightly and store them in a dry 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. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Mushroom + allspicetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together717 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Full-grown mushrooms
Provide the main body and savory flavor of the ketchup.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the mushrooms and helps preserve the mixture.

The step that matters

Simmering the sealed jars in boiling water. Long, steady heat is needed to break down the mushrooms and concentrate the liquid. Too little time leaves the ketchup weak and less safely preserved, while the water must stay at a gentle simmer so the jars do not crack or leak.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, 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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