Why it works: Allspice and clove 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 ↓
Mushroom Catsup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the mushrooms
Wash the mushrooms and cut them into 2 to 4 pieces.
Layer the mushrooms in a wide, flat jar or crock, sprinkling each layer with coarse sea salt.
Let the mushrooms stand for 24 hours to extract juice.
Press out the juice and bottle it, then repeat the pressing after another 24 hours.
Make the ketchup
Combine all the extracted juice in a pot, add black pepper, allspice, and cloves, and boil.
Skim off any scum that rises while boiling.
Once cool, bottle the catsup, adding 2 cloves and a peppercorn to each bottle.
Cork and seal the bottles, then store in a dry place.
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.
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Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,874 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together17,451 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together6,395 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Mushroom + clovetop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,663 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Mushrooms
- Provide the bulk of the liquid and the savory, umami base of the ketchup.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws juice out of the mushrooms and helps preserve the extracted liquid.
- Allspice
- Adds warm, aromatic flavor to the boiled juice.
- Cloves
- Contribute warm, aromatic spice flavor to the finished ketchup.
The step that matters
Skim off scum while boiling. Foam and scum rising from the juice carry impurities and off flavors, so removing them keeps the ketchup clear and clean-tasting.
Swap the allspice
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, pepper, clove):
- Thymefits about as well
- Allspicethe original
- Marjoramfits about as well
- Nutmegfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, 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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