We had excellent porcini gathering this year—we discovered a new foraging location which is apparently overlooked by others. So we were faced with the delightful problem of what to do with so many mushrooms. We dried a lot, ate a lot fresh and still had more.
My husband found a recipe for pickled porcini. I was dubious and encouraged him to make a half-batch, just in case it was no good.
The process was strange—he sliced and salted the mushrooms, patted them dry, boiled them in vinegar, partially dehydrated them, and then packed them in a jar with a flavourful marinade to age.
They looked revolting.
Yesterday we tried them.
I’m not too proud to say I was wrong—totally wrong.
They are amazing—chewy, tangy, and bursting with intense mushroom flavour.
We cut them small and sprinkled them on a potato pesto pizza where they positively sparkled. I can’t wait to try them in all sorts of dishes, or simply slapped whole onto a cracker.
My only regret is that I convinced my husband to make a half-batch.
Discover more from Robinne Weiss
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Robinne Weiss 
how much is a peck of mushrooms?
LikeLike
A peck is an old unit of measure, usually used for produce (in my experience, at least), equivalent to 8 quarts.
LikeLike
is the 8 quart measurement of a peck of mushrooms just whole mushrooms? Chopped?
LikeLike
It was a fun alliteration. 🙂 The post wasn’t meant to provide a detailed recipe. You can find a recipe for pickled porcini here: https://honest-food.net/italian-marinated-mushrooms-recipe/
LikeLike
Thank you for that recipe link, I’ll try it sometime, it sounds delicious! I was asking about your experience with pecks of mushrooms, and if the 8 quarts to a peck is of chopped mushrooms or whole ones!
I happened across a very old recipe that calls for a peck of mushrooms, and I want to know if the full 8 quarts in a peck are of mushrooms chopped or whole so I can follow the recipe better; I haven’t found any other information so far on what a peck of mushrooms is! 🙂
LikeLike
Hm. Good question. You never know with an old recipe, do you? They don’t tend to be very precise. My gut feeling would be that they’re referring to whole mushrooms, because you’d pick the mushrooms and put them into your basket (your peck basket, or your bushel basket if you were REALLY lucky), and that’s how you’d measure quantities. Good luck!
LikeLike