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Sauce

Mushroom Catsup

A fermented mushroom sauce made by layering mushrooms with salt, spices, and liquor, then heating.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mushroom Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the mushrooms

  1. Choose full-grown, fresh mushrooms, preferably gathered in dry weather.

  2. Layer mushrooms in a deep pan.

  3. Sprinkle salt between each layer.

  4. Let them sit for a few hours.

Extract the juice

  1. Break them up by hand.

  2. Place the mixture in a cool place for three days.

  3. Stir and mash occasionally to extract juice.

  4. Measure the liquor without straining.

Season and heat

  1. Add the spices according to the proportions.

  2. Transfer everything into a stone jar and cover the jar tightly.

  3. Place the jar in a saucepan of water over low heat.

  4. Let it heat gently for several hours.

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. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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 flavor and the liquid that becomes the ketchup.
Coarse sea salt
Draws juice out of the mushrooms and helps preserve the mixture.
Mushroom liquor
Adds liquid and concentrated mushroom flavor to the finished ketchup.
Cayenne pepper
Adds sharp heat that lingers after the ketchup is cooked.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes that round out the savory base.
Mace
Adds a delicate, warm aroma to the ketchup.

The step that matters

Let it heat gently for several hours. Low, gentle heat in a water bath lets the flavors extract and concentrate slowly. Stronger heat could boil or scorch the mixture and make it bitter or dark.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

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