Mushroom Ketchup and Mushrooms for Steak Recipes

Mushroom Ketchup Recipe
Mushrooms for Steak Recipe

The mushroom ketchup is from a recipe in Heston Blumenthal's In Search of Perfection: Reinventing Kitchen Classics.

Take a pound (.5kg) of button mushrooms, pre-sliced is fine, otherwise slice them similarly, and put them in a strainer over a bowl.


Measure out 25g (a bit less than an ounce) of salt. For measurements like this I use the Escali Primo Digital Scale which is very accurate, and can weigh up to 11 lbs. It also can measure in grams, which is convenient if you are working from European recipes.

Toss the mushrooms in the salt. Cover the strainer and bowl, and leave in the refrigerator overnight.

The next day you will have partially dried mushrooms and dark brown mushroom juice, which is going to be full of mushroom umami goodness and pretty damn salty to boot.

Reserve the mushrooms.

For each pint of mushroom juice, add 1/2 cup red wine, 1/4 cup of red wine vinegar, a dash of mace, 10 black peppercorns, 2 cloves, and 1 shallot (or 2 cloves of garlic, or a couple slices of onion).

Reduce the liquid by half, and strain finely, discarding the solid.

Return the liquid to the pan, and add cornflour slowly, until the desired ketchup consistency is reached.

The mushroom ketchup will keep for a month in a jar in the fridge.

When you are ready to prepare the partially dried mushrooms, simply saute them in a generous portion of butter, or for extra specialness, use the butter from the blue-cheese/butter infusion recipe here.