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To Pot Mushrooms

A method of preserving mushrooms by cooking them with spices, butter, and suet, then sealing them in paper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,400 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

To Pot Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and wipe the larger mushrooms.

Cook the mushrooms

  1. In a pot, combine mushrooms with mace, white pepper, and powdered cloves.

  2. Heat over fire, shaking until the liquid dries up.

  3. Add butter and stew until mushrooms are tender.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool.

Pack and seal

  1. Pack mushrooms tightly into a pot, making the surface even.

  2. Add lukewarm butter and cover with white paper.

  3. Pour clarified suet over the paper to exclude air.

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 + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Mushroom + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,663 recipes

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

  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

Mushrooms
The main ingredient, whose moisture is driven off and whose texture softens during stewing.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps seal the surface of the packed mushrooms.
Clarified suet
Forms a fat layer poured over the paper that excludes air from the mushrooms.

The step that matters

Heat over fire, shaking until the liquid dries up. Mushrooms release a lot of water as they cook. Driving off that liquid concentrates flavor and prevents the mushrooms from being preserved in a watery state, so the step must be carried far enough.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, mace, clove, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, mace, clove, butter. 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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