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Pickled Mushrooms, White

Pickled white mushrooms preserved in vinegar with salt, pepper, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: White pepper and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,695 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

Pickled Mushrooms, White

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Clean the mushrooms by cutting off the roots and rough edges.

  2. Rub the mushrooms with a little salt on a piece of fine flannel.

  3. Soak the mushrooms in a basin of milk and water.

  4. Drain the mushrooms.

  5. Place the drained mushrooms on a clean cloth to remove excess liquid.

Cook

  1. Combine the mushrooms with salt, white pepper, and mace in a clean or new tin stew-pan.

  2. Simmer gently on a slow stove for about 10 minutes.

  3. Remove the mushrooms with a slotted spoon.

  4. Cover the mushrooms with a cloth.

  5. Reduce the cooking liquid by half.

Pickle and bottle

  1. Add enough distilled vinegar to cover the mushrooms.

  2. Boil the vinegar for about 5 minutes.

  3. Pour the boiled vinegar over the mushrooms.

  4. The next day, transfer the mushrooms to bottles.

  5. Cork the bottles tightly.

  6. Seal the tops.

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. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  2. Mushroom + vinegartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,070 recipes

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

  3. White pepper + vinegartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mushroom + macetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,529 recipes

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

  5. Mace + vinegartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,415 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Natural button mushrooms
Form the main body of the pickle, absorbing the seasoned vinegar as the star ingredient.
Distilled vinegar
Acidifies and preserves the mushrooms, giving the pickle its sharp, tangy flavor.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the mushrooms before they are pickled.
Whole white pepper
Adds gentle, warm heat and aroma to the cooking liquid.
Mace
Contributes a warm, nutmeg-like aroma to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Reducing the cooking liquid by half. Reducing concentrates the salt, pepper and mace flavors in the liquid, and cooking the mushrooms gently keeps them tender rather than rubbery. Reducing too little leaves the brine weak and watery.

Swap the mace

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

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

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