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Pickled Mushrooms

Pickled mushrooms are preserved in a spiced vinegar solution.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Pickled Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut off the end of each mushroom stalk.

  2. Scrape, wash, and spread the mushrooms out to drain.

Make the pickling liquid

  1. In a pot, combine vinegar with stick cinnamon, mace, cloves, allspice, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Boil the vinegar and spice mixture.

Pack and seal

  1. Place the mushrooms in jars and pour the hot mixture over them.

  2. Seal the jars tightly once they cool.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Are the main food being preserved, giving the pickle its texture and bulk.
Vinegar
Acidity preserves the mushrooms and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy flavour.
Stick cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma to the pickling liquid.
Cloves
Contribute strong, warm aromatic flavour to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot mixture over the mushrooms. The liquid must be boiling when it goes into the jars so the mushrooms are heated and the spice flavours penetrate. Sealing only after cooling lets the jars form a vacuum as they contract, which helps keep them shelf-stable.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, vinegar, cinnamon, clove, allspice):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, vinegar, cinnamon, clove, allspice. 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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