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Sauce

Burton S Mushroom Catsup

A sauce made from mushrooms, ginger, mace, cloves, black pepper, allspice, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice 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 ↓

Burton S Mushroom Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Draw the liquid

  1. Peel the mushrooms and break them into bits.

  2. Strew coarse sea salt over the mushrooms and let them stand overnight.

  3. Warm the mushrooms on the fire and strain the liquid.

Boil and spice

  1. Boil the liquid for about 5 minutes and skim it well.

  2. Add ginger, mace, cloves, black pepper, and allspice to the liquid.

  3. Let the mixture boil for 15 minutes.

Bottle

  1. Bottle the catsup when it is completely cool.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Provide the main body and savoury flavour, and release the liquid that becomes the catsup.
Ginger
Adds a warm, sharp aroma that brightens the savoury mushroom base.
Mace
Contributes a delicate, nutmeg-like aroma to the spiced liquid.
Cloves
Add a strong, sweet-spicy aroma that carries through the long boil.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, pungent heat that rounds out the spice blend.
Allspice
Adds a warm, mixed-spice aroma that deepens the overall flavour.

The step that matters

Bottle only when completely cool. Bottling hot catsup traps steam, which condenses into water and can dilute the sauce or encourage spoilage. Cooling first keeps the texture and storage quality stable.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, ginger, clove, pepper, allspice. 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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