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Mushroom Ketchup

A mushroom ketchup made by fermenting mushrooms, then simmering with spices, brandy, and port.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Extract the juice

  1. Let the mushrooms stand for three days, turning them occasionally with a wooden spoon.

  2. Drain the liquid without pressure.

  3. Simmer the liquid in a clean saucepan for 30 minutes.

  4. Strain the liquid.

Season and bottle

  1. Add ½ teaspoon mace, ½ teaspoon powdered ginger, and ¼ teaspoon cayenne for every pint.

  2. Simmer for another 30 minutes.

  3. Let it cool completely.

  4. Pour the clear liquid into dry quart bottles.

  5. Add 1 dessert spoon of brandy to each bottle.

  6. Cork securely and seal to exclude air.

Make the second ketchup

  1. Sprinkle leftover mushrooms with salt.

  2. Place the salted mushrooms in a cool oven overnight.

  3. Press out the juice.

  4. Boil the juice with ¼ ounce each of black pepper, Jamaica pepper, cloves, bruised ginger, and 3 chopped anchovies.

  5. Add 1 tablespoon of port.

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

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

  5. Mushroom + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,663 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Release their own liquid over days, which becomes the base of the ketchup.
Anchovies
Add savory depth and umami that rounds out the sauce's flavor.
Brandy
Acts as a preservative alongside sealing, helping the bottled ketchup keep.

The step that matters

Cork securely and seal to exclude air. Air exposure lets microbes and oxidation spoil bottled liquids, so the cork must fit tightly and the seal must be complete to keep the ketchup stable.

Swap the mace

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

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

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