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Sauce

Mushroom Catsup

A mushroom-based sauce made by simmering mushrooms with pepper, allspice, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 the mushrooms

  1. Clean the mushrooms well each day.

  2. Pour the mushrooms into a stone jar and add ½ ounce of whole black pepper for each quart.

  3. Seal the jar tightly and place it in a pot of boiling water.

  4. Simmer for at least 2 hours.

Strain and clarify

  1. Remove the jar and pour off the clear juice through a fine sieve into a saucepan, avoiding squeezing the mushrooms.

  2. Bring the juice to a boil, skim it, and pour it into a dry jar.

  3. Let it stand overnight, then gently pour it off through a fine cloth to avoid disturbing the sediment.

Bottle

  1. Bottle the catsup in pints or half pints.

  2. In each pint, add 12 black pepper berries, 12 allspice berries, and 1 tablespoon of brandy.

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. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Mushroom + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together206 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Mushroom + allspicetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together717 recipes

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

  5. Brandy + allspicetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together931 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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 liquid that becomes the ketchup.
Whole black pepper
Adds pungent, spicy flavor to the mushroom juice.
Allspice berries
Add warm, aromatic flavor to the finished ketchup.
Brandy
Adds alcohol that helps preserve the ketchup and carries aroma.

The step that matters

Avoid squeezing the mushrooms when straining. Squeezing forces out cloudy particles and fine solids, which would make the juice murky and more likely to leave sediment in the bottled ketchup.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, pepper, brandy. 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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