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Mushroom Catchup

A mushroom-based condiment made by salting, pounding, and seasoning with pepper and allspice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 Catchup

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the mushrooms

  1. Layer mushrooms in a deep earthen pan, sprinkling each layer with coarse sea salt.

  2. Let them sit for 2-3 hours until the salt penetrates the mushrooms.

Break down and ferment

  1. Pound the mushrooms in a mortar or mash them with your hands.

  2. Let the mixture sit for 2 days, stirring well each day.

Season and jar

  1. Pour the mixture into a stone jar and add 1½ ounces of whole black pepper and ½ ounce of allspice.

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 + allspicetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together717 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

Full grown mushrooms
Provide the main body and savory umami flavor of the ketchup.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the mushrooms and preserves the mixture during resting.
Whole black pepper
Adds sharp, pungent heat and aroma to the finished ketchup.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes that round out the flavor.

The step that matters

Salting the layers. Salt must be spread evenly through each layer so it draws out moisture and begins breaking down the mushrooms. Uneven salting lets some parts spoil or ferment unevenly before the mixture is ready.

Swap the allspice

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, 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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