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Mushroom Ketchup

A fermented mushroom condiment made by salting, steeping, and boiling with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove 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 Ketchup

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the mushrooms

  1. Break the mushrooms into thin pieces and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

  2. Stir the mushrooms occasionally for three days.

  3. Let the mixture stand for twelve days until a thick scum forms on top.

Spice and bottle

  1. Strain the liquid and boil it with Jamaica pepper, black pepper, mace, ginger, cloves, and mustard seed.

  2. Once cooled, bottle the mixture and seal with a bladder over the cork.

Reboil and age

  1. After three months, boil it again with some fresh spices to enhance flavor.

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. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Clove + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked 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

Largest broad mushrooms
Provide the main body and liquid of the ketchup as they break down in salt.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the mushrooms and preserves the mixture during the long standing.
Jamaica pepper
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor to the boiled liquid.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, pungent heat to the boiled liquid.
Mace
Contributes a delicate, aromatic warmth to the spiced liquid.

The step that matters

Let the mixture stand for twelve days. Salting and standing draw out the mushroom liquid and let fermentation develop flavor. Too short a rest leaves the ketchup thin and underdeveloped, while the thick scum signals the mixture is ready.

Swap the mace

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

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

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