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Drink

Mushroom Pudding

A preserved mushroom beverage made by mashing mushrooms, boiling, and bottling with brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and brandy work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 206 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Mushroom Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Pick mushrooms on a dry day to avoid mustiness.

  2. Layer mushrooms in a deep pan, sprinkling salt between layers.

  3. Let sit for a few hours, then break them up by hand.

  4. Store in a cool place for 3 days, stirring and mashing occasionally.

Make the liquid

  1. Measure the liquid without straining.

  2. For each quart of liquid, add the appropriate spices.

  3. Transfer to a stone jar, cover tightly, and place in boiling water.

  4. Boil for 3 hours.

  5. Pour contents into a clean saucepan and simmer gently for 30 minutes.

  6. Let cool overnight, then pour off into another jug without disturbing sediment.

Bottle and seal

  1. Strain into clean bottles, adding a few drops of brandy to each pint.

  2. Cork well and seal to exclude air.

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 + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together206 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Provide the main flavour and the bulk of the liquid once salted and broken down.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the mushrooms and helps preserve them during storage.
Brandy
Adds alcohol that helps preserve the finished liquid in the bottles.

The step that matters

Keep the jar tightly covered during the long boil. A tight cover keeps steam and aroma in and stops the liquid from evaporating or concentrating unevenly over three hours of heating.

“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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