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To Pickle Mushrooms

A pickled mushroom recipe using wild meadow mushrooms, vinegar, salt, pepper, ginger, cayenne, mace, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

To Pickle Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Select the smallest buttons of wild meadow mushrooms, freshly gathered.

  2. Cut stems off close and clean them with new flannel slightly moistened and dipped in fine salt.

  3. Throw them into plenty of spring water mixed with a large spoonful of salt, drain quickly, and lay into a soft cloth to dry.

Make the pickle

  1. For each quart of mushrooms, take nearly a quart of palest white wine vinegar.

  2. Add to the vinegar a heaped teaspoonful of salt, half an ounce of whole white pepper, an ounce of ginger (sliced or slightly bruised), about a quarter of a saltspoonful of cayenne tied in a small bit of muslin, and two large blades of mace.

  3. Add half a small nutmeg, sliced, if desired.

  4. When the pickle boils, throw the mushrooms in and boil over a clear fire moderately fast from six to nine minutes, or longer if not very small.

  5. If mushrooms are disproportioned, boil larger ones for two minutes before adding the others.

  6. As soon as they are tolerably tender, put them at once into small stone jars or warm wide-necked bottles, dividing the spice equally among them.

Store

  1. The following day, or as soon as they are perfectly cold, secure them from the air with large corks, or tie skins and paper over them.

  2. Store in a dry place, guarded from severe frost.

  3. If you prefer color over excellence, use distilled vinegar instead of wine vinegar.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

29Calories
0 gProtein
1 gFat
4 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Eliza Acton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Ginger + macetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

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

  5. White pepper + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms (in the method)
Are the main ingredient, softened and flavoured by the hot pickling liquid.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the mushrooms and gives the pickle its sharp taste.
Ginger
Adds a warm, aromatic flavour to the pickling liquid.
White pepper
Adds gentle heat and aroma to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Boiling the mushrooms. Boiling for too long turns mushrooms soft and limp, while stopping too early leaves them raw-tasting. Size matters, so larger mushrooms need a head start to cook evenly.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, mace, nutmeg, 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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