Name: To Pickle Mushrooms Brown
Ingredients: buttons mushrooms; coarse sea salt; vinegar; pepper; ginger

Why it works: Pepper and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,800 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Pickle Mushrooms Brown

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Rub the mushrooms with a cloth dipped in salt and water.
Place them in a clean pot, sprinkling salt over each layer.
Scald the mushrooms in their own liquid over the fire.
Skim off the scum and let them stand overnight.
Scald them again, skim well, and add vinegar, pepper, and ginger.
Transfer to jars and seal 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.

Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,800 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,580 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Mushroom + gingertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together867 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Mushroom + vinegartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,070 recipes

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