Mushroom Catsup

Ingredients

• Let the mushrooms be collected when the weather is dry
• mingled with salt
• salt and spice only as are required to preserve it

Method

1. 1

   Collect mushrooms when dry, cut off stalk-ends, and reject decayed ones.

2. 2

   Slice mushrooms and mix with salt to draw out juice.

3. 3

   Store in clean, dry bottles, ensuring they are free from moisture.

As published

This recipe was extracted from Modern cookery, in all its branches (1884) by Eliza Acton, page 151. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

mushroom catsup when it has been made in a wet season, or when it has not been very carefully prepared. This, with essence of anchovies, walnut catsup, Harvey’s sauce, cavice, lemon-pickle, chili, cucumber, and eschalot Tj 146 MODEEN COOKEBY. [chap. VII. vinegar, will be all that is commonly needed for family use ; but there is at the present day an extensive choice of these stores on sale, some of which are excellent. CHETNEY SAUCE. ( Bengal Receipt). Stone four ounces of good raisins, and chop them small, with half a pound of crabs, sour apples, unripe bullaces,* or of any other hard acid fruit. Take four ounces of coarse brown sugar, two of powdered ginger, and the same quantity of salt and cayenne pepper ; grind these ingredients separately in a mortar, as fine as possible ; then pound the fruits well, and mix the spices with them, one by one ; beat them together until they are perfectly blended, and add gradually as much vine- gar as will make the sauce of the consistence of thick cream. Put it into bottles with an ounce of garlic, divided into cloves, and cc k it tightly. Stoned raisins, 4 oz. ; crao^ or other acid fruit, ^ lb. ; coarse sugar, 4 oz. ; powdered ginger, 2 oz. ; salt, 2 oz. ; cayenne pepper, 2 oz. ; garlic, 1 oz. ; vinegar, enough to dilute it properly. Ohs. — This favourite oriental sauce is compounded in a great variety of ways ; but some kind of acid fruit is essential to it. The mango is used in India ; here gooseberries, while still hard and green, are sometimes used for it ; and ripe red chilies and tomatas are mixed with the other ingredients. The sauce keeps better if it be exposed to a gentle degree of heat for a week or two, either by the side of the fire, or in a full southern aspect in the sun : the heat of a very slow oven, in which it might be left for a night, would propably have a still better effect. In this case it must be put into a jar or bottles, and well secured from the air. PXalf a pound of gooseberries, or of these and tamarinds from the shell, and green apples mixed, and the same weight of salt, stoned raisins, brown sugar, powdered ginger, chilies, and garlic, with a pint and a half of vinegar, and the juice of three large lemons, will make another genuine Bengal chetney. FINE MUSHROOM CATSUP. One of the very best and most useful of store sauces is good home-made mushroom catsup, which, if really well prepared, imparts an agreeable flavour to any soup or sauce with which it is mingled, and at the same time heightens the colour without imparting the * Hard acid fruit in a crude state is, we think, an ingredient not much to be recommended; and it is always better to deviate a little from “an approved receipt” than to endanger health by the use of ingredients of a questionable cha- racter. Gooseberries or tomatas, after being subjected to a moderate degree of heat, might be eaten with far less hazard. Garlic. CHAP. VII.] STORE SAUCES. 147 “ bitter sweetness ” which the burnt sugar used as “ browning ” in clumsy cookery so often does. The catsup ought, in fact, to be rather the pure essence of mushrooms, made with so much salt and spice only as are required to preserve it for a year or longer, than the com- pound of mushroom -juice, anchovies, shalots, allspice, and other con- diments of which it is commonly composed, especially for sale. Directions to he observed in making and for keeping the catsup. — Let the mushrooms be collected when the weather is dry

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.