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Mushroom Catsup

A fermented mushroom sauce seasoned with allspice, ginger, mace, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Layer the mushrooms and salt in an earthen dish and let sit for 6 hours.

  2. Break the mushrooms into bits and set in a cool place for 3 days, stirring every morning.

Season and cook

  1. Measure the juice and add allspice, ginger, mace, and cayenne according to the amount of juice.

  2. Transfer to a stone jar, cover tightly, and boil in a saucepan of boiling water for 5 hours.

  3. Remove from heat, pour into a porcelain kettle, and boil slowly for an additional 30 minutes.

Settle and bottle

  1. Let it cool overnight until settled and clear.

  2. Carefully pour off the sediment and bottle, filling to the top.

  3. Dip the corks in melted resin to seal.

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Ginger + macetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + gingertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together867 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. 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

Mushrooms
Release their juice under salt, forming the liquid base of the ketchup.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the mushrooms and helps preserve the liquid.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the preserved juice.
Ginger
Adds pungent, aromatic warmth that balances the savoury mushroom juice.
Cayenne
Adds heat and sharpness to the finished ketchup.

The step that matters

Settling before bottling. Cooling overnight lets fine sediment settle so the liquid can be poured off clear. Pouring too soon or too vigorously stirs the sediment back in, leaving a cloudy ketchup that settles again in the bottle.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, allspice, 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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