Polish Marinated Mushrooms (Grzyby Marynowane)
Appetizer · Mushrooms · Pickled · Polish · Vegan · Wild and Foraged Foods
The Polish autumn pickle: small firm wild mushrooms (boletes, slippery jacks, chanterelles) boiled briefly and packed in a sweet-sour vinegar brine with allspice, bay and mustard seed. They are served with cold meats and at the Christmas Eve table.
⚠ This is a refrigerator pickle. The traditional Polish method packs the mushrooms hot, covers them with boiling brine, caps the jars and turns them upside down to cool, with no processing. Inverting a jar is not a tested seal under US guidance, so this version is kept in the fridge. For a shelf-stable pickled mushroom, use the tested Canned Marinated Whole Mushrooms.
Untested: I have not made these yet. Adapted from the source named in the Notes.
Ingredients
- 2 kg small firm mushrooms (wild boletes, slippery jacks, chanterelles, or firm cultivated mushrooms)
- 1 onion, sliced
- Brine
- 4 cups water
- 1 cup 10% vinegar (or 2 cups 5% vinegar, reducing the water to 3 cups)
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 8 allspice berries
- 4 bay leaves
- 1 tablespoon mustard seed
- 1 tablespoon peppercorns
Directions
- Key ingredients Allspice Black Pepper
- Identify and clean. Every wild mushroom must be positively identified. Clean and trim, keeping only small, firm ones.
- Boil. Boil the mushrooms with the onion for about 5 minutes, then drain.
- Brine. Bring the water, vinegar, sugar, salt and spices to the boil.
- Pack. Pack the mushrooms into clean jars about three-quarters full and pour the boiling brine over them to cover.
- Refrigerate. Cool, cover and refrigerate. They are ready in a few days. Keep refrigerated and use within a few weeks.
Notes
Where this recipe came from Adapted from Kwestia Smaku’s grzyby marynowane (kwestiasmaku.com). The mushroom and brine quantities are theirs. Their brine uses Polish 10% vinegar at a 4:1 ratio of water to vinegar. American vinegar is usually 5%, which is why the ingredient list gives the alternative.
Why it’s written as a refrigerator pickle The original method is hot-fill and invert, with no pasteurisation. That is not a tested process under NCHFP guidance, and home-preserved mushrooms are a documented botulism risk. Italy’s ISS lists home-preserved mushrooms in oil among the leading home foods behind botulism. See the Mushrooms dive’s preserving page and the Pickled section’s safety pages.
About the photo The photo shows home-canned jars of pickled milk-cap mushrooms from Ukraine, a close neighbour of the Polish tradition.