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Mushrooms

A pickled mushroom recipe using vinegar, mace, and sweet oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,070 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Mushrooms

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the small mushrooms in spring water and rub them with a flannel dipped in salt.

  2. Place the cleaned mushrooms in cold water to maintain their color.

Cook and dry

  1. Put the mushrooms in a saucepan with a handful of coarse sea salt, cover, and heat for 4-5 minutes until they release their liquid.

  2. Lay the mushrooms between two dry cloths until they cool.

Pickle and store

  1. Pack the mushrooms into glass bottles, filling them with distilled vinegar, adding a blade of mace and a teaspoon of sweet oil to each bottle.

  2. Cork the bottles tightly and store them in a dry, cool place.

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 + vinegartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Mushroom + macetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,529 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Vinegar + macetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,415 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Small mushrooms
Form the main body of the pickle, absorbing the vinegar and seasoning as they are packed.
Distilled vinegar
Acidifies the mushrooms, preserving them and giving the pickle its sharp flavor.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture from the mushrooms and seasons them during the initial cooking.
Sweet oil
Adds fat and a mellow, rounded mouthfeel to the finished pickle.

The step that matters

Heating the mushrooms with salt until they release their liquid. Heating with salt draws out moisture and firms the mushrooms; overcooking makes them soft and mushy, while undercooking leaves liquid that dilutes the vinegar and weakens preservation.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, 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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