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To Pickle Mushrooms White

A pickled preparation of fresh white button mushrooms in vinegar, salt, mace, ginger, and sweet oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cider and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,431 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

To Pickle Mushrooms White

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Peel the mushrooms carefully with a knife and cut off the stems, placing them in a bowl of saltwater.

  2. In a porcelain skillet, boil the mushrooms in fresh water for 7-8 minutes.

  3. Drain the mushrooms and spread them on a clean board with the hollow side down.

  4. While still hot, sprinkle the mushrooms with salt.

Pickle and seal

  1. Once cooled, layer the mushrooms in a glass jar with mace and sliced ginger.

  2. Fill the jar with cold cider vinegar and top with a spoonful of sweet oil.

  3. Cork the jar tightly.

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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

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

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

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

  4. Cider + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together658 recipes
  5. Mushroom + vinegartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,070 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Small fresh-gathered button mushrooms
Form the body of the pickle, absorbing the vinegar and salt as they soften.
Cold cider vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the mushrooms and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Sweet oil
Adds a thin layer on top that helps shut out air from the surface of the pickle.

The step that matters

Boiling the mushrooms for 7-8 minutes. Boiling firms the mushrooms and sets their texture before pickling. Overcooking can make them soft and watery, while undercooking leaves them tough and less able to absorb the vinegar.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, cider, 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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