Two stages to prepare:
Mushroom Juice
1.5kg button mushrooms
75g table salt
Wipe the mushrooms clean then chop finely Place the mushrooms into a fine sieve over a bowl, and stir in the salt. Store in the fridge for 24 hours to extraxt the juice from the m/rooms.
Make pickled mushrooms:
200g baby button mushrooms
100g unrefined caster sugar
300ml good quality red-wine vinegar
Wipe the mushrooms clean and remove stalks. Cut clean m/rooms into quarters and place in a bowl.
Add sugar and vinegar into a small pan and boil until the sugar dissolves, then pour the hot pickling liquor over the mushrooms, let it cool, then place in the fridge for 24 hours.
To make the ketchup
For each 600ml of mushroom juice, you will need:
120ml red wine
60ml red-wine vinegar
� tsp ground mace
� tsp whole black peppercorns
2 cloves
1 shallot, roughly chopped
Cornflour (to thicken)
Measure the mushroom juice that has collected, and calculate the quantities of wine, vinegar, spices and shallot you will need.
Place the m/room juice, wine, vinegar, spices and shallot into a pan and bring to the boil. When the liquid has reduced by half, remove from heat and strain through a sieve, discarding the spices and shallot.
Return strained liquid to the pan. Thicken by adding some cornflour and whisk this into the liquor. Remove thickened ketchup base from heat and set aside.
Strain the pickled mushrooms through a sieve, discarding the liquor. To add a piquancy to ketchup, stir pickled mushrooms into the base, to taste (Ant noy used can be had with cheese or cold meats!). Spoon the ketchup into a clean jar or container, cover and store in the fridge.
Serve with the steaks......