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Mushroom Catchup

A mushroom-based sauce made by crushing mushrooms, seasoning, simmering, and bottling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mushroom Catchup

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Crush the mushrooms with your hands and sprinkle salt over them.

  2. Let them stand overnight.

  3. Place the mushrooms in a stewpan and set in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 12 hours.

  4. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

Make the catsup

  1. For every gallon of liquid, add 1 ounce each of cloves, Jamaica pepper, black pepper, and ginger, along with ½ pound of common salt.

  2. Set on low heat and boil until half the liquid evaporates.

  3. Transfer to a clean pot and let it cool before bottling.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Mushroom + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,663 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Full grown flaps of mushrooms
Main body of the sauce, releasing liquid and flavour as it breaks down.
Common salt
Draws moisture out of the mushrooms and seasons the liquid for preservation.
Cloves
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the liquid.
Ginger
Adds pungent, aromatic warmth to the liquid.

The step that matters

Boil until half the liquid evaporates. Reducing the liquid concentrates its flavour and salt. Boiling too gently or stopping early leaves a thin, weakly seasoned result, while over-reducing can make it overly salty and dark.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, clove, 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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