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Sauce

Ketchup, Mushroom

A preserved sauce made from mushrooms, spices, and ginger, boiled and strained into a bottle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ketchup, Mushroom

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Wash the mushrooms and cut off half the stalk of each.

  2. Break or cut the mushrooms into pieces and layer them in an earthenware vessel, sprinkling salt between layers.

  3. Place the vessel in a cool oven or a warm spot on the stove to draw out the juice for a whole day.

Make the ketchup

  1. Strain the mixture, pressing out all the liquid, and measure it.

  2. Boil the liquid for about 30 minutes.

  3. Add the mace, allspice, cloves, and ginger tied in a piece of muslin, and boil again for about 30 minutes.

  4. Remove the muslin and allow the ketchup to cool.

Bottle and store

  1. Strain again, then bottle, cork, and store in a cool 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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Provide the main bulk and savoury, umami flavour of the ketchup.
Coarse sea salt
Draws juice out of the mushrooms and preserves the mixture.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the boiled liquid.
Ginger
Adds aromatic warmth and a gentle pungency to the ketchup.

The step that matters

Drawing out the juice. Salt must be layered evenly through the mushrooms and they must rest undisturbed for a full day so that enough liquid is released. Without it, too little juice forms and the ketchup lacks body and keeping quality.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

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