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Mushroom Ketchup

A fermented mushroom condiment made with salt, allspice, pepper, and French brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and brandy work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 206 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Mushroom Ketchup

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the mushrooms

  1. Clean mushrooms without washing them and layer them in a deep pan with salt.

  2. Cover and let them sit for three hours in a warm place.

  3. Press the mushrooms down with a wooden spoon.

  4. Let them sit for two days, stirring and mashing twice daily.

Make the ketchup

  1. Pour the pulp and liquid into stone jars, adding allspice and black peppercorns.

  2. Seal the jars tightly.

  3. Place the jars in a pot with boiling water, ensuring the water reaches nearly the top of the jars.

  4. Boil for three and a half hours or steam for the same time.

  5. Remove the jars and pour off the liquid.

  6. Strain the liquid through a fine sieve into a clean pot.

  7. Simmer the liquid for one hour, skimming off any scum that rises.

Clarify and bottle

  1. Pour the ketchup into a clean, dry jug and let it sit covered in a cool place for twenty hours.

  2. Decant the clear liquid from the sediment through a thick flannel bag.

  3. Add two tablespoons of French brandy per part of ketchup.

  4. Let it stand in the jug again.

  5. Pour into small, clean, dry bottles for storage.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. Allspice + brandytop 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

Fresh mushrooms
Provide the bulk of the liquid and flavor once salted and broken down.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the mushrooms and preserves the mixture.
Allspice berries
Add warm, aromatic spice notes that flavor the ketchup during long cooking.
Black peppercorns
Add mild heat and aroma that infuse the liquid during cooking.
French brandy
Adds alcohol that helps preserve the ketchup and contributes aroma.

The step that matters

Boiling the sealed jars. The jars must stay sealed and the water must reach nearly the top of them so the contents heat evenly over the long cooking time. Loose seals or low water let steam escape and can leave the contents underheated or spoiled.

Swap the allspice

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, 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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