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Ketchup

A mushroom-based sauce made with cloves, pepper, ginger, shallots, and simmered for an hour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Ketchup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub and pick the mushrooms clean.

Cook and strain

  1. Combine all ingredients in a pot and simmer for one hour.

  2. Strain the mixture through a flannel bag.

Cool and bottle

  1. Let the liquid cool completely.

  2. Bottle and seal tightly with cork and bladder or leather.

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. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Clove + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Ginger + shallottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together565 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Flap mushrooms
Provide the bulk and savory, umami-rich body of the ketchup.
Shallots
Add sweetness and a mellow aromatic base as they simmer.
Ginger
Contributes a warm, pungent aroma and a bit of heat.
Black pepper
Adds a sharp, spicy bite that balances the savory flavor.
Whole cloves
Add a warm, sweet-spicy aroma during the long simmer.

The step that matters

Let the liquid cool completely before bottling. Sealing warm liquid traps steam and condensation in the bottle, which can dilute the ketchup and encourage spoilage. Cooling fully before corking helps it keep.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Carrotfits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Shallotthe original
  4. Spinachfits less well

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