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Double Mushroom Catsup

A thick mushroom sauce made by stewing mushrooms with catsup and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,800 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Double Mushroom Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Salt and steep

  1. Strew 3 ounces of salt over 1 gallon of fresh mushrooms and pour in 1 quart of ready-made catsup.

  2. Stir occasionally for 4 days.

Strain and boil

  1. Drain the liquid from the mushrooms.

  2. Boil the liquid for 15 minutes with 1 ounce of whole black pepper, 1½ teaspoons of mace, 1 ounce of ground ginger, and 3 to 4 grains of cayenne.

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 + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Mace + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Mushroom + gingertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together867 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh mushrooms
Release their liquid under salt, forming the savoury base of the catsup.
Ready-made catsup
Adds tomato sweetness and acidity to the mixture.
Whole black peppercorns
Provide sharp, pungent aroma as the liquid simmers.
Ground ginger
Adds a warm, spicy aroma to the finished catsup.
Ground mace
Adds a warm, sweet-spiced aroma.

The step that matters

Salting and steeping the mushrooms. Salt draws moisture out of the mushrooms through osmosis, creating the liquid that becomes the catsup. Measure the salt by weight, since too little may fail to preserve the mixture during the four days of standing.

Swap the mace

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

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

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