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Mushrooms

A preserved mushroom dish flavored with salt, mace, pepper, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,580 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub the mushrooms with a bit of flannel and coarse sea salt.

  2. Remove the red inside from the larger mushrooms.

  3. Sprinkle a little salt over the mushrooms.

Cook

  1. Place the mushrooms in a stew-pan with mace and pepper.

  2. Shake the pan as the liquid comes out.

  3. Keep over gentle heat until the liquid is absorbed.

Pickle and store

  1. Add enough vinegar to cover the mushrooms.

  2. Warm the mixture.

  3. Transfer everything to a glass or stone jar.

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 + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  3. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

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

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

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Main ingredient that softens and releases liquid during gentle cooking, then takes up the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickled mushrooms.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the mushrooms.

The step that matters

Keep over gentle heat until the liquid is absorbed. Gentle heat lets the mushrooms release their liquid slowly and then reabsorb it without scorching or toughening. High heat can burn the pan and make the mushrooms rubbery.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, 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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