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Mushroom Ketchup

A fermented mushroom condiment made with salt, spices, and 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

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Clean the mushrooms without washing them.

  2. Layer them in a deep pan with salt.

  3. Let them sit covered in a warm place for three hours.

  4. Press the mushrooms down with a wooden spoon.

  5. Keep them in the pan for two days.

  6. Stir and mash twice daily.

Spice and seal

  1. Pour the pulp and liquid into jars.

  2. Add ½ ounce of allspice and 1½ ounces of black pepper for each quart.

  3. Seal the jars tightly.

Boil the jars

  1. Place them in a pot with boiling water.

  2. Ensure the water reaches nearly the top of the jars.

  3. Boil for 3½ hours.

  4. Remove the jars.

Strain and finish

  1. Pour off the liquid while keeping the sediment.

  2. Strain it through a fine sieve into a clean pot.

  3. Simmer the strained liquid for one hour.

  4. Skim off any scum that rises.

  5. Pour the ketchup into a clean jug.

  6. Let it sit covered in a cool place for 20 hours.

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

  8. Add 2 tablespoons of French brandy for each quart.

  9. Store the pure ketchup in small, clean, dry bottles.

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 main body, juice and savoury flavour of the ketchup.
Coarse sea salt
Draws liquid out of the mushrooms and helps preserve the mixture.
Allspice berries
Add warm, aromatic spice notes to the finished ketchup.
Black peppercorns
Add sharp, aromatic heat that rounds out the spice blend.
French brandy
Adds alcohol and aroma, supporting the ketchup's keeping quality.

The step that matters

Boil the jars. The jars must be sealed and the water should reach nearly their tops so the contents heat evenly over the full three and a half hours, helping kill microbes and keep the ketchup from spoiling.

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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