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To Pickle Mushrooms

A pickled mushroom recipe using wild or meadow mushrooms, vinegar, salt, pepper, ginger, cayenne, mace, and optional nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

To Pickle Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Select the smallest wild or meadow mushrooms and clean them with a damp cloth dipped in salt.

  2. Soak the cleaned mushrooms in spring water mixed with 1 tablespoon of salt, then drain and dry them with a cloth.

Pickle

  1. In a pot, combine 1 quart of white wine vinegar, 1 heaped teaspoon of salt, whole white pepper, ginger, cayenne pepper in muslin, and mace.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil, then add the mushrooms and boil for 6 to 9 minutes until tender.

  3. If mushrooms vary in size, boil larger ones for 2 minutes before adding smaller ones.

  4. Transfer the mushrooms to small stone jars or warm bottles, dividing the spices evenly among them.

  5. Allow to cool completely before sealing.

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 + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Mushroom + white winetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Small wild or meadow mushrooms
Provide the main texture, which becomes tender after boiling in the vinegar brine.
Pale white wine vinegar
Acidity preserves the mushrooms and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy flavour.
Ginger
Adds a warm, aromatic note that carries into the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Boiling the mushrooms in the brine. Boiling for too long makes mushrooms soft and watery, while stopping too early leaves them undercooked. Sizes vary, so larger mushrooms need a head start before the smaller ones go in.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, white wine, vinegar, white pepper, ginger, pepper, mace):

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, white wine, vinegar, white pepper, ginger, pepper, mace. 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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