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Another Way to Make Mushroom Catsup

A mushroom-based condiment made with salt, egg whites, black pepper, and allspice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Another Way to Make Mushroom Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Break the mushrooms into small pieces and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

  2. Let them sit for 24 hours.

Clarify the liquid

  1. Strain off the liquid and add the well-beaten egg whites to the liquid.

  2. Boil the mixture and strain it through a flannel bag.

Season and bottle

  1. Boil again for about 10 minutes with a little salt, black pepper, and allspice.

  2. Once cooled, bottle the catsup with the spices and seal the corks.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  4. Mushroom + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + allspicetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Provide the main flavour and liquid that becomes the ketchup.
Egg whites
Bind to fine particles during boiling so they can be strained out, clearing the liquid.
Coarse sea salt
Draws liquid out of the mushrooms and seasons the base during the 24-hour rest.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes to the finished ketchup.

The step that matters

Boiling the strained liquid with egg whites. The egg whites must be fully mixed in and then boiled so they set and trap fine solids; if the mixture is not brought to a boil, the solids stay suspended and the ketchup stays cloudy.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, egg, pepper. 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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