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Mushroom Ketchup

A preserved mushroom condiment made by boiling mushrooms with spices and bottling the liquid.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 376 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mushroom Ketchup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the mushrooms in a stewpan and sprinkle with salt.

  2. Set the stewpan over low heat to allow the mushrooms to release their liquid.

  3. Strain the liquid and return it to the heat.

Make the ketchup

  1. Add shallots, garlic, pepper, ginger, mace, cloves, and bay leaves.

  2. Boil slowly and skim off any foam.

Bottle and mature

  1. Once cooled, bottle the mixture and seal with corks.

  2. After two months, reboil with fresh spices and a stick of horseradish.

  3. Store in a cool place; it will keep for a year.

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. Shallot + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together376 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Release their liquid under salt, forming the savoury base of the ketchup.
Shallots
Add aromatic sweetness and savoury depth as they cook down in the liquid.
Garlic
Contributes pungent aroma that mellows during long simmering and storage.
Coarse sea salt
Draws liquid out of the mushrooms and helps preserve the finished ketchup.

The step that matters

Skimming the foam while boiling slowly. Foam carries impurities and proteins from the mushrooms; removing it keeps the liquid clear and reduces off-flavours. Boiling slowly avoids scorching and keeps the flavour clean.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, shallot, clove, garlic, pepper, ginger, horseradish. 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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