Name: Mushroom Catsup
Ingredients: 1½ pints mushroom catsup; 4 ounces walnut Coratch; 1 ounce soy sauce; 1 ounce chili vinegar; 1 teaspoon essence of anchovy; ripe Indian Coratch; roasted capsicums or chili rusk; water

Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Mushroom Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Combine mushroom catsup, walnut coriander, soy sauce, chili vinegar, and essence of anchovy in a bowl.
Pound ripe Indian coriander and roasted capsicums or chili rusk with salt.
Add enough water to create a liquid consistency similar to milk.
Strain the mixture through a cloth, discarding the solids.
For preservation, add a little wine to the mixture.

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.

Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Walnut + capsicumtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,113 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).
Mushroom + capsicumtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,816 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Vinegar + capsicumtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,160 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Mushroom + walnuttop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together763 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushroom catsup: Provides the main savoury, umami base of the sauce.
Soy sauce: Adds salty, savoury depth that rounds out the flavour.
Essence of anchovy: Contributes concentrated savoury, salty depth to the sauce.
Chili vinegar: Adds acidity and sharpness that brightens and preserves the sauce.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, sauce, vinegar, anchovy, capsicum):

Sesamefits better
Beansfits better
Walnutthe original
Chestnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, sauce, vinegar, anchovy, capsicum. 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.