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Mushrooms in Brine

Mushrooms preserved in a seasoned brine with oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Prepare the brine

  1. Prepare the mushrooms by removing the stems.

  2. In a pot, 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. Skim off any scum.

Cook and pack the mushrooms

  1. Add the mushrooms and boil gently for 5 minutes.

  2. Transfer the mushrooms to well-warmed, wide-necked bottles.

  3. Let the mushrooms cool completely.

Seal and store

  1. Pour a little salad oil on top of the mushrooms.

  2. Cork the bottles with new corks.

  3. Cover the bottles with bladders.

  4. Soak the mushrooms in warm water until the brine is sufficiently 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 preserved food, becoming tender and firm after brief boiling.
Common white salt
Preserves the mushrooms by drawing out moisture and inhibiting spoilage microbes in the brine.
Salad oil
Forms a layer on top that limits contact with air, helping protect the mushrooms in the bottle.

The step that matters

Let the mushrooms cool completely before sealing. Sealing warm mushrooms traps steam and moisture, which can dilute the brine and encourage spoilage. Full cooling before oil and corks helps the preserved mushrooms keep safely.

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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