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Pickling

A pickled mushroom recipe using vinegar, spices, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickling

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare a strong brine.

  2. Soak the mushrooms for three days.

  3. Drain the mushrooms.

  4. Place the mushrooms in a jar.

Make the pickling liquid

  1. Boil the vinegar with cloves, mace, long pepper, allspice, garlic, horse-radish, Cayenne pepper, turmeric, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Pour the hot mixture over the mushrooms.

  3. Cover the jar tightly.

  4. Let it sit overnight.

Reboil and seal

  1. Boil the mixture again.

  2. Repeat the process two more times.

  3. Once cooled, seal the jar 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.

  1. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Garlic + radishtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together199 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Button mushrooms
The main ingredient, which soaks up the brine and becomes the pickled food.
White vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps keep the pickle stable.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the mushrooms and seasons the brine, helping preserve them.
Cayenne pepper
Adds sharp heat to the brine.
Yellow turmeric
Gives the pickle its yellow colour and an earthy flavour.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma and savoury depth to the brine.

The step that matters

Pour the hot mixture over the mushrooms. Heat helps the spices and salt flavour the liquid and penetrate the mushrooms, while the vinegar's acidity keeps the pickle stable. Repeating the boil on each round keeps the brine hot and well mixed.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, clove, pepper, allspice, garlic, horse, radish):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, clove, pepper, allspice, garlic, horse, radish. 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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