Skip to main content
Main

Mushroom Catchup

A mushroom-based condiment made by fermenting toadstools with spices, wine, and ginger, then straining and bottling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mushroom Catchup

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salted mixture

  1. Clean and bruise the open toadstools.

  2. Layer the toadstools in an earthen pan, sprinkling salt between each layer.

  3. Add cloves, mace, allspice, and whole pepper.

  4. Let the mixture stand for six days, stirring daily.

Cook and strain

  1. Place the pan in a gentle oven, cover with a wet cloth, and keep it wet for four hours.

  2. Strain the mixture through a fine cloth or sieve.

  3. To every gallon of liquid, add one quart of red wine and salt to taste.

  4. Add small pieces of ginger, strain again, and let the catchup cool.

Bottle

  1. Pour off the liquid from the sediment, bottle, and cork tightly.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 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. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 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

Opened toadstools
Supply the main body and savoury flavour of the ketchup.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture from the mushrooms and preserves the mixture during the long standing.
Red wine
Adds acidity and liquid, extending the flavour of the ketchup.

The step that matters

Salting the layers and standing for six days. Salt draws water out of the mushrooms and keeps spoilage bacteria in check during the long rest. Too little salt can let the mixture spoil before the liquid is extracted.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, allspice, pepper, red wine, ginger):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, allspice, pepper, red wine, 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.

More mushroom ketchup recipes

Sauce 4 See all 229 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes