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To Make Mushroom Catchup

A mushroom condiment made by boiling mushroom flaps with spices and anchovies.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Make Mushroom Catchup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liquid

  1. Break down the mushroom flaps with your hands and mix with the salt.

  2. Set the mixture in a cool place overnight.

  3. The next day, clear off the liquid, boil it, and skim well.

  4. Let it stand until the next day, then clear it off again, ensuring you have 2 quarts of liquid.

Season and bottle

  1. Add the anchovies, mace, nutmeg, black pepper, cloves, ginger, and cayenne to the liquid.

  2. Boil everything together.

  3. Bottle the catchup the next day.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushroom flaps
Provide the main body and savory mushroom flavor of the catchup.
Anchovies
Add deep savory umami flavor that rounds out the sauce.
Coarse sea salt
Draws liquid out of the mushrooms and preserves the mixture.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, pungent heat and aroma.
Ginger
Adds warm, aromatic flavor that brightens the spiced liquid.

The step that matters

Clearing the liquid after standing. Salt draws water out of the mushrooms over the standing period, and the liquid must be carefully poured off so the catchup stays clear and measures the right volume of 2 quarts. Boiling and skimming remove foam and impurities that would otherwise cloud or spoil the sauce.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

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