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Mushrooms, Pickled

A pickled preservation of button mushrooms in vinegar, ginger, peppercorns, mace, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and mace 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, Pickled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash, dry, and peel the mushrooms, cutting off the tops of the stalks.

  2. Sprinkle salt over the mushrooms and shake until they release their liquid.

  3. Keep the mushrooms uncovered on the stove until most moisture evaporates.

Pickle

  1. Add vinegar, peppercorns, and mace.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Simmer gently for 10 minutes.

Jar and store

  1. Transfer the pickled mushrooms to jars.

  2. Cover the jars closely.

  3. Store the jars in a cool, dry place.

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. Ginger + macetop 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 + vinegartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,070 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + gingertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,126 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. 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

Button mushrooms
Main ingredient that softens and absorbs the vinegar flavour as it pickles.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickled mushrooms.
Salt
Draws out moisture from the mushrooms before pickling.

The step that matters

Evaporating the moisture from the mushrooms. If the mushrooms keep too much of their released liquid, the vinegar is diluted and the pickle is weaker and more prone to spoiling. Cooking them uncovered until most moisture evaporates concentrates their flavour and helps the pickle hold.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, vinegar, 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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