Scant 2lbs small young mushroom buttons. 28-30 oz will fit a quart jar. Chanterelle buttons are my favorite here
3cloves7 grams garlic thinly sliced
½cupflavorless oil for sauteeinggrapeseed or canola
1teaspoon 5 grams kosher salta generous teaspoon
¾ cupwater
½cupRice wine vinegar you can also use white wine vinegar, but it will have a stronger flavor
2teaspoonsfresh chopped thymefresh only
1dried bay leafor use fresh
Instructions
Read through the entire recipe before proceeding.
Clean your mushrooms by swishing them quickly in cold water while you clean them to ensure they'll have liquid to give up when they hit the heat. Transfer the mushrooms to a tray lined with a few paper towels and allow them to rest and release some liquid. I like to do this overnight in the fridge to allow them to dry out a bit.
In a wide pan with high sides, or a soup pot, gently heat the oil and the sliced garlic slowly on medium heat until the garlic begins to turn golden. Take your time here, as the more color you can put on the garlic, the better the finished product will taste. Do not burn the garlic.
When the garlic is perfectly golden, add the mushrooms, salt and herbs, stir so the salt can help draw out the mushroom liquid, then cover the pan, cooking on medium heat, and allow the mushrooms to give up their juice and halt the cooking of the garlic. The mushrooms should give off a good amount of water.
Once the mushrooms have wilted and given up their juice, add the water and vinegar, then bring the mixture to a rolling boil.
Finally, put the mushrooms in a quart jar, pack them down, then bring the liquid back to a boil, and pour the boiling liquid over the mushrooms. Wiggle a chopstick around in the jar to get out air pockets, adding extra pickling liquid as needed. From here the mushrooms can be stored in the fridge and will last for months as long as they're kept under their liquid.
If you want to water bath can the mushrooms, leave ½ inch of headspace at the top. Depending on the size of your mushrooms, you may have a little pickle liquid and some mushrooms leftover.
Press the mushrooms down to make sure they are completely covered with liquid--add a little oil to cover if they threaten to pop up, then screw on the lid, then process the jar(s) in a water bath like regular cucumber pickles: 10 minutes for pints, 15 minutes for quarts. Store opened jars in the fridge.
Notes
If you want to can this for long term storage, pour the mushrooms and their juice while boiling hot into the jar, top it off with the extra ¼ cup of oil, screw on the lid tightly and turn the jar upside down. Alternately, can in a water bath.