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Compound, or Cook’s Catsup

A thickened catsup made with mushroom catsup, shallots, walnut catsup, and cayenne vinegar, simmered and bottled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and shallot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,982 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Compound, or Cook’s Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Simmer the mushroom catsup with the shallots for 5 minutes.

  2. Add the walnut catsup and cayenne vinegar.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Pour the mixture out.

  5. Let the mixture cool.

  6. Bottle it with the shallots inside.

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. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Shallot + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Shallot + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mushroom + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together763 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Mushroom + vinegartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushroom catsup
Provides the main savoury, umami base of the sauce.
Walnut catsup
Adds a deeper, earthy savoury flavour to the blend.
Cayenne vinegar
Adds sharp acidity and heat that brightens and preserves the sauce.
Shallots
Contribute a mild aromatic onion flavour as they simmer in the catsup.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, shallot, vinegar. 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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