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Mushroom Ketchup, Another Way

A preserved mushroom-based condiment made by simmering mushrooms, pickled skins, and spices, then aging for two months.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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, Another Way

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liquid

  1. Combine the mushrooms, pickled skins, and salt in a stew pan.

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

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

Season and boil

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

  2. Boil and skim the mixture well.

Bottle and age

  1. Once cooled, cork the mixture tightly.

  2. After two months, reboil with a little fresh spice and horseradish.

  3. Store the ketchup for up to 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
Provide the main body of flavour and liquid that forms the ketchup.
Coarse sea salt
Draws liquid out of the mushrooms and preserves the mixture.
Shallots
Add savoury sweetness and aromatic depth to the liquid.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows during long storage.
Horseradish
Adds sharp pungency that brightens the ketchup when reboiled.

The step that matters

Skimming the boiled mixture. Boiling draws out foam and impurities that rise to the surface. Skimming them well keeps the ketchup clear and clean-tasting, and helps it keep in storage.

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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