Polish pickled mushrooms: firm, sweet-and-sour, for the holiday table
The pickled mushrooms that go beside the herring and the vegetable salad: button or forest mushrooms blanched briefly in water with vinegar so they stay pale and firm, then covered with a sweet-and-sour marinade with allspice, bay, mustard seed, onion and carrot. A quarter of an hour of pasteurising, a month of waiting in the fridge. Five jars from a kilo and a half.
Your own work in that: 55 min.
- Cleaning 25 min
- Blanching 15 min
- Packing and marinade 15 min
- Pasteurising 15 min
- Cooling 30 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneClean the mushrooms
Clean the mushrooms with a small brush or a damp cloth and trim the stem ends. Don't soak button mushrooms: they take up water like a sponge. Leave small ones whole, halve the larger. Check forest mushrooms (bay boletes, peeled slippery jacks) for worms.
Ingredients: 1500 g button or forest mushrooms · 2000 ml water · 1 tbsp salt · 2 tbsp spirit vinegar, 10 %
TipFor pickling, choose the smallest mushrooms with closed caps. Open ones with dark gills cloud the brine and fall apart.
A brush, not water; small ones wholeBlanch in water with vinegar
Bring the water with the salt and 2 tablespoons of vinegar to the boil, add the mushrooms and cook 10 minutes from the return to the boil, skimming the foam. The vinegar in the water keeps the mushrooms pale and firm. Drain in a colander and leave to drip.
TipDon't use the blanching water for the marinade: it is cloudy and dark. Make the marinade from fresh water.
Ten minutes, foam skimmedBoil the marinade
Cut the onions into rings and the carrot into thin slices. Bring fresh water with the vinegar, sugar, salt, onion, carrot, allspice, bay, peppercorns and mustard seeds to the boil and simmer 5 minutes. Taste: it should be distinctly sour-sweet; the mushrooms will mellow it.
Ingredients: 1000 ml water · 250 ml spirit vinegar, 10 % · 100 g sugar · 1 tbsp salt · 2 pcs onions · 1 pcs carrot · 10 pcs allspice berries · 5 pcs bay leaves · 10 pcs black peppercorns · 2 tsp mustard seeds
TipThe ratio to remember: 4 parts water to 1 part 10 % vinegar, plus 100 g sugar and a tablespoon of salt per litre of water. Like it milder? 5 : 1.
Mushrooms dripping, marinade simmeringPack the jars
Scald five 300–350 ml jars and their lids. Pack the mushrooms to three-quarters full, tucking carrot slices and onion rings lifted from the marinade between them, with 2 allspice berries, a bay leaf and a few peppercorns and mustard seeds in each jar.
Mushrooms, carrot, onion, spicesPour over the hot marinade
Pour the boiling marinade over the mushrooms so they are fully covered, 1 cm from the rim. Wipe the threads and screw the lids on tightly.
Hot marinade, mushrooms under the surfacePasteurise and wait
Stand the jars in a pot lined with a cloth, add hot water to three-quarters of their height, bring to the boil and pasteurise 15 minutes from the boil over low heat. Lift out, stand upside down 10 minutes, turn upright. The mushrooms need 3–4 weeks to take on the marinade. Keep them in the fridge, for up to six months: mushrooms are low in acid of their own, and home pasteurising cannot be relied on to destroy botulism spores, so a cellar or pantry is out. Eat an opened jar within a week. Throw out any jar with a bulging lid, cloudy brine or a lid that has not sealed, without tasting.
A quarter of an hour, then a month of patience
Before you start
With garlic and chilli
A garlic clove and a piece of chilli in each jar: the sharper version for vodka and cold cuts.
In oil
After pasteurising and a week in the brine, drain the mushrooms, cover with olive oil with garlic and thyme and keep in the fridge 2 weeks. Polish-style antipasti.
The brine went cloudy
Mushrooms too mature with dark gills, or the blanching water was used. Cloudiness without foam or an off smell is harmless; a jar with a bulging lid goes in the bin untasted.