Pickled Mushrooms

(Bob M) #1

I’ve been making this recipe from Alton Brown for pickled mushrooms:

https://www.cookingchanneltv.com/recipes/alton-brown/pickled-mushrooms-reloaded-8731003

Last time I made this, I used baby bellas from Costco, and made two batches. I used the 3/4 teaspoon sugar called for in the recipe for one batch and 1/4 teaspoon of sugar for the second batch. I liked the second batch (1/4 tsp sugar) better. That’s about 1 gram of carbs for one pound mushrooms. And that assumes all the sugar in solution goes into the mushrooms.

I’ve been cutting the mushrooms into quarters and using them on my cold meat (usually beef) lunches. They add a nice flavor.

If you do this, I recommend a sachet, that is, put the spices/herbs (save maybe the garlic) in a packet made of cheesecloth or similar. Otherwise, you can end up eating an allspice berry or a pepper berry by accident.

(Robin) #2

I gave you a heart just to be courteous. Mushrooms make me gag. the thought of pickling them makes me gag bigger! LOL. But, just so you know… I am passing this on to a friend who is a mushroom fanatic.

#3

I like mushrooms and pickled things are especially awesome :smiley: But I just put my things into watered, a tad spicy vinegar… I surely don’t add sugar, I can’t imagine the sweetness completely disappear, all store-bought pickles are sweet, ewww. Okay, 1/4 teaspoon is tiny (but I only have coconut sugar and I usually don’t have even that… I can’t just buy table sugar, my mind screamed at me when I last tried for a reason so I gave it up) but is it necessary? Is it a taste thing?
Fortunately, I can buy pickled mushrooms cheap and even the boring almost tasteless champignon (NOTHING like the wild ones I find, too rarely) is so good with vinegar. Well, vinegar makes almost everything better for me… Mmmmm.

But it would be nice to make pickled mushrooms from the mushrooms I collected nearby! Those are tasty! That would be something else…

I can’t reach the link (I see this “not available in your country” message way too often lately, I don’t even understand why those exist… oh well) but thanks for reminding me that I can pickle mushrooms, I will look up various recipes anyway and make my own as usual. I never could pickle veggies as those takes more time and undergo big changes but my pickled eggs (I only learned about their existence on this forum, it’s not a thing here) turned out good and pickled mushrooms sound like a great idea too.
If I could make pickled fish… My childhood favorite and I only bought a jar again lately, all the sweetener in it scared me away…

(Bob M) #4

@robintemplin I can see that. My kids still rebel every time we try to feed them mushrooms.

@Shinita You could definitely make this spicy. I just tend to be allergic to spicy things. That’s too bad, as I was one of those people who could eat the “Wings of DEATH!” with no issues. I loved hot sauce and spicy food, but now when I eat it, I see an immediate allergic reaction. I still eat it, but not as much.

Next time I make this, I’ll compare 1/4 teaspoon sugar to none. We have coconut sugar, too, though I think I used real sugar.

What I usually do for a new recipe is follow it exactly, so I can see what the recipe maker intended. Then, I start trying modifications. This way, I can determine whether my modification is good or bad.

And honestly, even 3/4 teaspoon of sugar is not bad for a pound of mushrooms. And the preparation for this is the hardest part – cleaning all the mushrooms, taking off the stems, cutting them (if you do that, which I do), getting all the materials together. It’s not much more time to make 2 batches, so that’s what I’ve been doing.

#5

I like mildly spicy things :slight_smile: I love to be very generous with the vinegar. Vinegar and mustard are my friends. But it’s always nice to have some chili too, just not too much.

I know myself and have much experience with recipes so I usually know if my modifications are good (or I am excited to try them out) :slight_smile: But yeah, the idea is doing things close to the original first (just doing very necessary modifications and skipping not important ingredients I don’t have or dislike. many recipes can be simplified or use ingredients clearly not a good idea for me). Sugar is out of question unless it’s needed but I don’t have sugar even then, only the flavorful coconut sugar for sweets.
The sugar isn’t much, it’s a principle, I am used to avoiding it since ages and I am sensitive to sweetness. I only put natural sugar like tomatoes and onions into my things, not even sweetener unless they are sweets or maybe mustard but I can’t make mustard and it’s quite sad as I love it (the good one, not my own, that’s only good for deviled eggs where it’s mixed in and hidden enough).

Cleaning mushrooms can be quite time-consuming but it heavily depends on the mushroom. But a pound isn’t that much. I was quite lucky in early winter and regularly cleaned way bigger amounts of mushroom quite generously covered with slime. That was somewhat tiring… And I spent hours to collect them, often in brushes and I have long hair and glasses :smiley: But they were huge and extremely beautiful, I made photos (the brushes loved to attack my camera too). Some mushrooms are worse, smaller, needing lots of cleaning and often having maggots (but they are tasty and great for soups, a little goes for a long way, fortunately… beautiful too).
It wouldn’t worth the work if I wasn’t an enthusiastic mushroom hunter who can appreciate their taste and texture too…

(Andrew Board) #6

Hm, this recipe looks good, answer me please its really tasty? Should i try it?

(Bob M) #7

I really like it. So much that when I go to Costco, I get two large packages of the baby bella mushrooms and make a huge batch. Basically 2-3 times the recipe.

You can leave the caps whole or cut them. Originally, I cut them all, since I mainly use them to add to my meat lunches. (I take beef that’s been cut into chunks, and eat cold.) Now, I cut the large ones in half or smaller, and leave the smaller ones whole.

I make this at least once a month or so.

(Andrew Board) #8

Hey dude, i tryed this recipe, its really great!! Thank a lot :slight_smile: