Why it works: Allspice and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓
Ketchup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the mushrooms
Gather fresh mushrooms before they discolor and wipe them with a clean cloth.
Break the mushrooms into pieces in a large earthen pan.
Add a handful of coarse sea salt for every three handfuls of mushrooms.
Stir the mixture two to three times a day until the salt dissolves and the mushrooms liquefy.
Bruise any remaining bits and set the mixture over a gentle fire to extract the flavor.
Strain the hot liquid through a fine sieve.
Season and simmer
Boil the strained liquid gently with allspice, black pepper, ginger, horseradish, onion or shallots, and bay leaves.
After simmering and skimming, strain it into bottles.
Bottle and preserve
Once cooled, seal the bottles with cork and bladder.
For longer preservation, boil again after three months with fresh spices and sliced horseradish.
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.
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Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,620 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Allspice + horseradishtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together654 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together6,395 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Horseradish + oniontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,784 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together6,800 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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 bulk and savory flavor as they break down into the liquid.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the mushrooms and preserves the mixture while it liquefies.
- Bay leaves
- Add a subtle aromatic, herbal note to the simmered liquid.
- Ginger
- Adds warm, aromatic pungency to the simmered liquid.
The step that matters
Gentle simmering of the strained liquid. Boiling hard can cloud the liquid and drive off delicate aromatics from the spices. A gentle simmer extracts flavor while keeping the ketchup clear and well balanced.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, allspice, pepper, ginger, horseradish):
- Shallotfits better
- Mustardfits better
- Carrotfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, allspice, 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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