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To Pickle Mushrooms

A method for pickling button mushrooms with salt, mace, pepper, and white wine vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,632 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol, which smells allspice, anise. The science ↓

To Pickle Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Rub and clean the mushrooms with flannel and salt.

  2. Sprinkle some salt over them and place them in a stew-pan with mace and whole pepper.

  3. Shake the mushrooms well while the liquid comes out until it is absorbed back into them.

Pickle and store

  1. Pour in enough vinegar to cover the mushrooms.

  2. Warm the mixture on the stove and transfer it to a jar.

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. Mushroom + winetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,632 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

  2. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Wine + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,493 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Button mushrooms
Form the main body of the dish, and their texture softens and takes on flavor as they pickle.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the mushrooms, then seasons them as they reabsorb the liquid.
White-wine vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the mushrooms.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice note to the pickling liquid.
Whole pepper
Adds a mild, aromatic heat that infuses the mushrooms as they cook.

The step that matters

Shaking the mushrooms until the liquid is reabsorbed. Salt pulls water out of the mushrooms, and shaking them while it drains lets the mushrooms take that seasoned liquid back in. Stopping early leaves them wet and unevenly seasoned.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, pepper, wine, vinegar. 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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