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Mushroom Ketchup

A fermented mushroom sauce made with salt, spices, and mace.

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 Ketchup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Choose full-grown mushroom caps and ensure they are freshly gathered.

  2. Mix the mushrooms with the coarse sea salt in a large container.

  3. Let the mixture sit until the mushrooms release their liquid.

Season and store

  1. Strain the mushroom liquid and measure it.

  2. For each quart of mushroom liquid, add cayenne, allspice, ginger, and pounded mace.

  3. Stir well and store in a sealed container.

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
Release the liquid that becomes the base of the ketchup.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the mushrooms and helps preserve the liquid.
Cayenne pepper
Adds heat that gives the finished ketchup its sharp, spicy bite.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic flavour to the seasoned liquid.
Ginger
Adds a sharp, aromatic note that brightens the savoury liquid.
Mace
Adds a warm, delicate aroma to the seasoned liquid.

The step that matters

Letting the mushrooms sit with the salt. Salt draws water out of the mushroom cells through osmosis, so the mixture must rest long enough for the liquid to fully separate. Too little time leaves the base weak and under-extracted, which affects the flavour and body of the finished ketchup.

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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