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Sauce

Mushroom Catsup

A preserved mushroom sauce made with salt, pimento, cloves, and black pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Mushroom Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the mushrooms

  1. Sprinkle salt over the mushrooms in a deep earthen pan, layering them alternately.

  2. Let them sit for 2-3 hours until the salt penetrates.

  3. Mash the mushrooms well using a mortar or your hands.

  4. Let the mixture sit for two days, stirring and mashing it daily.

Jar and heat

  1. Pour the mixture into a stone jar and add whole black pepper.

  2. Seal the jar tightly and place it in a saucepan of boiling water, keeping it boiling.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Mushroom + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,663 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Provide the main body and savory flavor of the ketchup as they break down.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the mushrooms and preserves the mixture during the long rest.
Pimento
Adds a mild, warm aroma and sweetness to the finished ketchup.
Cloves
Contributes a warm, aromatic spice flavor.
Whole black pepper
Adds gentle heat and a sharp, aromatic bite.

The step that matters

Sealing the jar and keeping the water boiling. A tightly sealed jar heated in boiling water lets the contents heat evenly and stay under sustained heat. Letting the water drop or the seal leak can leave the mixture under-heated, so it may not be stable for storage.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, pepper. 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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