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Mushrooms in Brine

A brined pickling of small button mushrooms in a seasoned saltwater solution.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,152 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Mushrooms in Brine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the brine

  1. Boil 2 quarts of water with ½ pound of salt, 2 teaspoons of white peppercorns, 2 blades of mace, and 1 piece of ginger for 5 minutes.

  2. Skim off the scum and add the mushrooms, boiling gently for another 5 minutes.

Bottle and seal

  1. Transfer the mushrooms to warm, wide‑necked bottles and let them cool completely.

  2. Pour a little salad oil on top, cork the bottles with new corks, and cover with bladders.

Use

  1. To use, soak the mushrooms in warm water until the brine is extracted.

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 + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + gingertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together867 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mushroom buttons
Are the main vegetable being preserved, softening and absorbing the seasoned brine as they pickle.
Salt
Seasons the brine and helps preserve the mushrooms by drawing out moisture and limiting spoilage.
White peppercorns
Add a mild, sharp peppery aroma to the brine.
Ginger
Adds a warm, aromatic spice note to the brine.

The step that matters

Skimming and boiling the mushrooms. Mushrooms released into boiling brine need only a short, gentle simmer; over-boiling makes them tough and shrunken. Skimming off the scum keeps the brine clear and reduces impurities that could spoil the preserve.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, ginger. 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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