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Mushroom Catchup

A preserved mushroom condiment made by salting, drying, and spicing the mushrooms, then boiling the liquid and bottling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mushroom Catchup

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 300°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Break the mushrooms into a large basin.

  2. Strew the coarse sea salt over the mushrooms.

  3. Place in a cool oven (300°F / 150°C) overnight.

Make the ketchup

  1. Strain off the liquid, measure it, and let it boil for 15 minutes.

  2. Add black pepper to the liquid and let it boil for 1 hour.

  3. Add allspice and ginger.

  4. Add mace.

  5. When cold, bottle and cork.

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. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. 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 savoury flavour of the ketchup.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the mushrooms and preserves the liquid.
Black pepper
Adds a sharp, pungent warmth to the boiled liquid.

The step that matters

Overnight salting and slow oven stage. Salt must draw out the mushroom juices fully before straining; too little time or too hot an oven can leave the liquid thin or cause scorching, weakening the flavour and keeping quality.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, pepper, allspice, 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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