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Mushroom Catsup

A mushroom sauce seasoned with pepper, allspice, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mushroom Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushroom juice

  1. Place 1 quart of mushrooms in a stone jar.

  2. Add ½ ounce of whole black pepper to the jar.

  3. Seal the jar tightly.

  4. Place the jar in a pot of boiling water.

  5. Simmer for at least 2 hours.

  6. Remove the jar.

  7. Pour off the clear juice through a fine sieve into a saucepan, avoiding squeezing the mushrooms.

  8. Bring the juice to a boil.

  9. Skim the boiling juice.

  10. Pour the skimmed juice into a dry jar.

  11. Let the jar sit overnight.

  12. Gently pour the contents off through a flannel bag to avoid disturbing the sediment.

Bottle and season

  1. Bottle the catsup in pints or half pints.

  2. Add 12 black pepper berries to each pint.

  3. Add 12 allspice berries to each pint.

  4. Add 1 tablespoon of brandy to each pint.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Mushroom + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together206 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Mushroom + allspicetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together717 recipes

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

  5. Brandy + allspicetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together931 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Release their juice, which becomes the body of the ketchup once strained and clarified.
Brandy
Added to each pint as a preservative and to carry the aroma of the spices.
Allspice berries
Add warm, aromatic spice flavour to the finished ketchup.

The step that matters

Avoid squeezing the mushrooms when straining. Squeezing forces fine solids and cloudiness into the juice, which then makes the ketchup murky and more likely to spoil. Letting the clear juice drain alone, then settling and straining through flannel, gives a clear, stable result.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

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