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 Catsup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Clean the mushrooms and layer them in a pan, sprinkling salt between each layer.
Cover the pan and let it stand for two days.
Mash the mushrooms well and strain through a fine sieve.
Season and reduce
For each quart of pulp, add 1½ ounces of black pepper, ½ ounce of allspice, and a few blades of mace.
Boil the mixture until reduced to two-thirds of the original quantity.
Cool, strain and bottle
Pour it into a pan and let it cool overnight.
Strain again through a fine sieve and bottle for use.
Top each bottle with 1 tablespoon of sweet oil to exclude air, then cork tightly and seal the corks.
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.
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Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together6,395 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,189 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
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Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Mushroom + allspicetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together717 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,257 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fresh mushrooms
- Provide the bulk and liquid that becomes the savory base of the ketchup once salted and mashed.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the mushrooms and helps preserve the mixture against spoilage.
- Whole black pepper
- Adds sharp, pungent heat that balances the savory mushroom flavour.
- Whole allspice
- Contributes warm, clove-like aromatic notes to the sauce.
- Mace
- Adds a delicate, nutmeg-like aroma that rounds out the spice flavour.
- Sweet oil
- Forms a thin layer on the surface of each bottle that keeps air away from the ketchup.
The step that matters
Boiling down to two-thirds. Boiling evaporates water, concentrating the flavour and thickening the liquid. Stopping at two-thirds of the original quantity keeps the ketchup pourable rather than too thick.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, pepper, allspice):
- Thymefits better
- Clovefits better
- Marjoramfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, pepper, allspice. 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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