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Sauce

Mushroom Catsup

A mushroom-based sauce seasoned with allspice, pepper, cloves, ginger, and coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove 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 Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Steep the spices

  1. Combine mushroom juice, allspice, pepper, cloves, ginger, and coarse sea salt in a large pot.

  2. Soak the mixture for one hour.

Strain and store

  1. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

  2. Bottle the strained liquid for storage.

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 + clovetop 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. Pepper + clovetop 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

Mushroom juice
Forms the liquid base and supplies the savory, meaty flavor of the ketchup.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and helps preserve the ketchup while adding seasoning.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor that rounds out the savory base.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

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