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Pickled Mushrooms.— No. II

Mushrooms pickled in vinegar infused with nutmeg, mace, black pepper, Jamaica pepper, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Mushrooms.— No. II

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and dry the mushrooms.

Infuse the vinegar

  1. Infuse the nutmeg, mace, black pepper, Jamaica pepper, and cloves in vinegar for one hour.

  2. Slice the nutmeg.

Pickle and seal

  1. Pour the infused vinegar over the mushrooms, adding enough cold vinegar to cover them.

  2. Seal the mushrooms in a bottle.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Mushroom + white winetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  5. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 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 ingredient, absorbing the spiced vinegar to take on its flavour.
White wine vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the mushrooms while carrying the spice flavours.
Nutmeg
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the vinegar.
Mace
Adds a delicate, warm aroma that complements the nutmeg.
Cloves
Add a strong, pungent aroma to the infused vinegar.

The step that matters

Covering the mushrooms with vinegar. The mushrooms must stay fully submerged in the acidic vinegar, because exposed pieces can spoil and lose their texture. Cold vinegar is added to cover them, so the mixture should be checked to ensure no mushroom sits above the liquid.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, nutmeg, pepper, clove, white 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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