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Mushrooms, Pickled

Mushrooms pickled in vinegar with mace, ginger, white peppercorns, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,765 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

Mushrooms, Pickled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Cut off the stalks of the mushrooms and rub away the outer skin with a piece of flannel and fine salt.

  2. Rinse the mushrooms in salted spring water, drain quickly, and dry with a soft cloth.

Pickle and jar

  1. In a pot, boil the vinegar with mace, ginger, white peppercorns, and cayenne.

  2. Add the mushrooms to the boiling pickle and cook for 8 to 10 minutes until soft.

  3. Fill jars or large-mouthed bottles with the mushrooms and distribute the spices evenly.

  4. Once cooled, seal the jars securely and store in a dry 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 + white winetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  2. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Mace + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + gingertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together867 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. White wine + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,329 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Button mushrooms
Form the main body of the pickle, becoming soft and tender when simmered in the hot vinegar.
White wine vinegar
Provides the acidic pickling liquid that preserves the mushrooms and gives them their sharp flavour.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the mushrooms during the cleaning stage.
Crushed ginger
Adds warm, aromatic flavour that infuses into the hot pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Adding the mushrooms to the boiling pickle. Cooking for the stated 8 to 10 minutes softens the mushrooms while they absorb the acidic, spiced liquid. Overcooking can make them mushy and cause them to lose shape, while undercooking leaves them firm and less flavourful.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, white wine, vinegar, ginger. 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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