Name: Mushroom Ketchup, Another Way
Ingredients: 1 stew-pan full of large-flap mushrooms, not worm eaten; handful of coarse sea salt; 4 ounces of shallots; 2 cloves of garlic; pepper to taste; ginger to taste; mace to taste; cloves to taste; few bay leaves

Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mushroom Ketchup, Another Way

Ingredients

Directions

Make the ketchup

Place mushrooms and salt in a stew-pan over low heat.
Allow them to produce liquid, then strain the mixture.
Add shallots, garlic, pepper, ginger, mace, cloves, and bay leaves to the liquid.
Boil and skim well.

Store and re-boil

Once cooled, cork the mixture tightly.
After two months, boil again with fresh spices and a stick of horseradish.
This will preserve the ketchup for a year.

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.

Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,038 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,982 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,000 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,677 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms: Release their liquid to form the base of the ketchup.
Salt: Draws moisture out of the mushrooms and helps preserve the mixture.
Shallots: Add savory, aromatic flavour to the liquid.
Garlic: Adds pungent aroma and savory depth to the liquid.

The step that matters

Skimming while boiling. Boiling releases foam and impurities that rise to the surface. Skimming them off keeps the ketchup clear and prevents off flavours, which matters because the mixture is stored for a long time.

Swap the mace

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

Thymefits better
Turmericfits better
Allspicefits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, shallot, clove, garlic, pepper, ginger. 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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Mushroom Ketchup, Another Way