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To Pickle Mushrooms

A pickled mushroom recipe using wild button mushrooms, vinegar, spices, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 mushrooms and cut the stems close.

  2. Clean them with a damp cloth dipped in fine salt.

  3. Soak the mushrooms in spring water mixed with salt, then drain quickly.

  4. Lay them on a soft cloth to dry.

Pickle and store

  1. In a pot, combine vinegar, salt, white pepper, ginger, cayenne, mace, and nutmeg.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Add the mushrooms and boil for 6 to 9 minutes, longer for larger mushrooms.

  4. Transfer the mushrooms to small stone jars or warm bottles.

  5. Divide the spices among the jars.

  6. Seal with corks or cover with skins and paper once cooled.

  7. Store in a dry place away from frost.

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

Mushrooms
Are the main ingredient, pickled whole and firm in the spiced vinegar.
Pale white wine vinegar
Provides the acidic brine that preserves the mushrooms and gives them their sharp flavour.
White pepper
Adds warm, sharp aroma to the brine as it steeps into the mushrooms.
Ginger
Adds aromatic warmth that flavours the vinegar brine.

The step that matters

Drying the mushrooms before boiling. Mushrooms that stay wet dilute the hot vinegar and weaken its acidity, so surface moisture should be removed before they go into the pot.

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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