Food history AND mushrooms? Yes please! 😍 This homemade mushroom ketchup was delicious, like a deeply umami, foresty flavour bomb! 🍄‍🟫 🍂 I’ve been wanting to try to make it for years! You can buy it in some fancy shops and I always use it to bring my mushroom risotto to the next level! ✨ Traditionally it would be made by steeping fresh mushrooms with salt, which draws the liquid out of them! ☀️ The earliest English recipes for ketchup appear in the late 1600s–1700s, influenced by global trade and various fermented “kecaps” discovered in the Medieval period (50-1500) from Southeast Asia. By the Georgian period it was everywhere: Eliza Acton, Hannah Glasse, Mrs Beeton all included mushroom ketchup in their recipe books 📚 It was used to enrich gravies, meat pies, broths, ragouts, and create the ancestors of Worcestershire sauce. But we’re slightly out of mushroom season, so here’s my own, very modern version (there were no blenders in the medieval era of course), using dried mushrooms that you can make at home! 🌳 🍄 Mushroom Ketchup Recipe (Small Batch) Makes roughly 500ml Ingredients: 300g dried mushrooms 1L water 2 tbsp fine salt 1 white onion, chopped 1 tsp black peppercorns 2 TSP fresh thyme leaves 2 TSP fresh rosemary leaves 2 garlic cloves ½ tsp allspice 150ml apple cider vinegar (optional: 1 TSP truffle powder for a super mushroomy flavour) Method: Pour the water over the mushrooms, cover and leave to rehydrate for 45 minutes - 1 hours Remove the mushrooms, squeeze out the water, reserve all the liquid and chop the mushrooms roughly. Fry the mushrooms and onions, salt, pepper, rosemary and thyme for 10 minutes or until the mushrooms are slightly carmelised, then add garlic and spices for the last few minutes until fragrant. Deglaze the pan with vinegar. Blend + strain: Blitz until smooth and then strain through a fine sieve or muslin. Bottle: Pour into clean sterilised bottles. It keeps for months in the fridge. To make mushroom spice powder: Transfer all of the contents from the muslin cloth to a baking tray and into a low oven to dry thoroughly. Store in a small jar and use as even more flavour for mushroom dishes! - @foragedbyfern