Skip to main content
Main

Tooms Mushrooms

A preserved mushroom recipe using salt, cloves, allspice, mace, and nutmeg, boiled in a brine and bottled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tooms Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Clean the mushrooms by wiping them and cutting off the ends of the stems.

  2. Place the mushrooms in a deep pan and sprinkle salt over each layer.

  3. Let them sit for two days.

  4. Put the mushrooms in a sieve and strain off all the juice.

Make the spiced liquor

  1. Pour the juice into a preserving kettle.

  2. For every pint of juice, add 12 cloves, 12 allspice berries, 2-3 pieces of mace, and ½ grated nutmeg.

  3. Boil for 15 minutes, then remove from heat and let it stand for 2-3 days.

  4. Strain and bottle for use.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Clove + macetop 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
Form the bulk of the preserve and release juice when salted.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the mushrooms and helps preserve them.
Cloves
Add warm, aromatic spice flavor to the preserved juice.
Allspice berries
Contribute a warm, peppery aroma to the spiced juice.
Mace
Adds a delicate, warm aroma to the spiced juice.
Nutmeg
Adds a sweet, warm aroma to the spiced juice.

The step that matters

Salting the mushrooms in layers. Salt must be spread evenly over each layer so that moisture is drawn out consistently. Uneven salting lets some mushrooms spoil before others are properly preserved, and the juice collected becomes the base of the final preserve.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, clove, allspice, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, clove, allspice, nutmeg. 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.

You might also like

Mushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes