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Mushroom Catsup

A preserved mushroom-based sauce made by simmering mushrooms, spices, and stock, then aging and reboiling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Extract the liquid

  1. Place the mushrooms, skins, and stalks in a stew-pan with salt and set over low heat.

  2. Allow the mushrooms to produce liquid, then strain the liquid.

Flavour and boil

  1. Add shallots, garlic, black pepper, ginger, mace, cloves, and bay leaves to the liquid.

  2. Boil the mixture and skim off any foam.

Bottle and keep

  1. Once cooled, cork the mixture tightly.

  2. In two months, reboil the catsup with a little fresh spice and horseradish.

  3. Store in a cool, dry place.

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
Release their liquid, which becomes the base of the ketchup.
Shallots
Add savoury depth and aromatic sweetness to the liquid.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma and savoury flavour to the liquid.
Sea salt
Draws liquid out of the mushrooms and seasons the base.

The step that matters

Skimming the foam while boiling. Foam carries impurities and proteins from the mushrooms that can cloud the liquid and taint its flavour. Removing it keeps the ketchup clear and clean-tasting.

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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