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Pickled Mushrooms

Pickled mushrooms are fresh mushrooms preserved in a vinegar and water brine with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Wash the fresh mushrooms in several waters, preferably small ones.

  2. Boil the mushrooms in salted water for about 20 minutes, then drain.

Make the pickling liquid

  1. In a pot, bring 3 cups of vinegar and 2 cups of water to a boil.

  2. Add a few whole allspice, whole black pepper, coarse sea salt, and a little sugar to the boiling mixture.

Pickle and seal

  1. Drop in the mushrooms and boil for 5 minutes.

  2. Seal the mixture while it is still boiling hot.

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. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Vinegar + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + allspicetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together717 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh mushrooms
Form the main body of the pickle, absorbing the brine's flavour as they simmer.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the mushrooms and gives the pickle its sharp taste.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Seal the mixture while it is still boiling hot. Sealing hot helps drive air out of the jars and creates a vacuum as contents cool, which limits spoilage. If the mixture cools before sealing, the seal is less reliable and the mushrooms are more likely to spoil.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

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