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Another Way to Make Mushroom Catsup

A mushroom-based sauce made by fermenting mushrooms with salt, spices, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice 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 ↓

Another Way to Make Mushroom Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mushroom liquid

  1. Combine chopped mushrooms and coarse sea salt.

  2. Let the mixture sit for 24 hours.

  3. Strain the liquid.

  4. Add beaten egg whites.

  5. Boil for 10 minutes.

  6. Strain through a flannel bag.

Spice and bottle

  1. Return to heat.

  2. Add black pepper and Jamaica pepper.

  3. Boil for another 10 minutes.

  4. Let cool.

  5. Bottle with spices and seal the corks.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Provide the main body and savory flavor of the ketchup as they release their liquid.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the mushrooms and preserves the liquid by inhibiting spoilage.
Egg whites
Bind to fine particles when boiled, helping clarify the liquid as it is strained.

The step that matters

Boiling with egg whites. Egg whites must be well beaten and boiled so they coagulate and trap suspended solids; if the liquid is not strained carefully afterward, the ketchup stays cloudy.

Swap the mace

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

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

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