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Pickled Mushrooms

Pickled mushrooms are preserved in vinegar after being salted and seasoned with mace and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,580 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Pickled Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Rub the mushrooms with a piece of flannel and salt.

  2. Cut off the stalks.

  3. If large, remove the red inside and discard any black mushrooms.

Cook

  1. In a stew‑pan, sprinkle salt, pounded mace, and pepper over the mushrooms and shake well over a clear fire until the liquid flows.

  2. Continue heating until the liquid dries up.

  3. Add enough vinegar to cover the mushrooms.

  4. Let it simmer for one minute.

Store

  1. Store in jars.

  2. Seal with bladder.

  3. Keep in a 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. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  3. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Vinegar + mushroomtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,070 recipes

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

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

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

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Young button mushrooms
Form the main body of the pickle, absorbing the seasoning and vinegar as they cook.
Vinegar
Acidifies the mushrooms, giving the pickle its sharp flavor and helping preserve it.
Ground pepper
Adds sharp, aromatic heat that flavors the mushrooms as the liquid cooks down.
Mace
Contributes a warm, aromatic spice flavor to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Heating until the liquid dries up. Mushrooms release a lot of water when heated with salt. Cooking until that liquid evaporates concentrates the flavor and removes moisture before the vinegar is added, so the vinegar can cover them without diluting the pickle.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, mushroom, pepper. 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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