Mushroom Ketchup
Ingredients
Directions
Salt the mushrooms
Gather mushrooms in the morning before sunrise.
Break mushrooms into small pieces, sprinkle with coarse sea salt, and let sit for four days, turning daily.
Place mushrooms in a sieve or thin bag and let the liquid drain overnight.
Make the ketchup
Boil the drained mushrooms in cold water for about 30 minutes, then drain again.
Combine the second liquid with the first in a stew-pan, add mixed spices, and boil for five minutes.
Strain through muslin into a basin, let cool, then bottle, cork, and seal.
Store in a dry place.
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
What each ingredient does
- Mushrooms
- Provide the main body and savoury, umami flavour of the ketchup.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws out moisture from the mushrooms and preserves them during the long salting.
- Mixed spices
- Add aroma and warm flavour to the finished liquid.
The step that matters
Salting the mushrooms for four days. Salt draws water out of the mushrooms through osmosis, concentrating their flavour and inhibiting spoilage microbes. Too little salt or uneven turning can let the mushrooms spoil before the liquid forms.
“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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