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Mushroom Catsup

A mushroom-based sauce made by fermenting mushrooms with spices and then simmering the resulting juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mushroom Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the mushrooms

  1. Wipe mushrooms with a flannel dipped in salt.

  2. Layer mushrooms in an earthenware dish, sprinkling salt between each layer.

  3. Cover with a damp cloth and let stand in a warm place for 36 hours.

Extract and spice

  1. Mash and strain the mushrooms to collect the juice.

  2. For each quart of juice, add 1 oz. of peppercorns and boil for 30 minutes.

  3. Add 1 oz. each of allspice and whole cloves, ½ oz. ginger root, and 1 blade of mace.

  4. Simmer for 15 minutes, then strain and bottle when cold.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Main body of the ketchup; salting draws out their juice, which becomes the sauce.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the mushrooms and helps preserve the juice.
Peppercorns
Adds sharp, pungent heat and aroma to the boiled juice.
Allspice
Contributes warm, aromatic spice notes to the boiled juice.
Whole cloves
Adds strong, warm aromatic flavour to the boiled juice.

The step that matters

Salting and standing the mushrooms. Enough salt must be layered evenly so the mushrooms release their juice and the salt protects against spoilage during the 36-hour standing. Too little salt or too warm a spot risks the mushrooms spoiling before the juice is extracted.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

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