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To Pickle Mushrooms

A pickled mushroom recipe using vinegar, salt, pepper, ginger, cayenne, mace, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

To Pickle Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Select the smallest wild meadow mushrooms and cut the stems close.

  2. Clean the mushrooms with a damp cloth dipped in fine salt.

  3. Soak them in spring water mixed with 2 teaspoons of salt, then drain quickly.

  4. Lay them on a soft cloth to dry.

Pickle and jar

  1. In a pot, combine 1 quart of white wine vinegar, 1 heaped teaspoon of salt, whole white pepper, ginger, cayenne, mace, and nutmeg.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Add the mushrooms and boil for 6 to 9 minutes until tender.

  4. If mushrooms are uneven in size, boil larger ones for 2 minutes before adding smaller ones.

  5. Transfer the mushrooms to small stone jars or warm bottles, dividing the spices equally.

  6. Seal the jars once the mushrooms are cool.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Wild meadow mushrooms
Provide the main ingredient, which becomes tender when boiled in the spiced vinegar.
White wine vinegar
Acts as the pickling liquid, preserving the mushrooms and giving them a sharp acidity.
Salt
Draws out moisture during cleaning and seasons the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Boiling the mushrooms by size. Mushrooms of different sizes reach tenderness at different rates. Boiling larger pieces briefly first helps prevent small ones from overcooking while the big ones are still firm.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, white wine, vinegar, white pepper, ginger, pepper, mace):

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

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