Pickled Saffron Milk Caps for Winter

Cooking method

1. Step 1:

   

   Gather your ingredients. It's best not to let the mushrooms sit for long after picking — pickle them right away. Smaller mushrooms are best: they not only look prettier in the jars, but it's also thought that larger, mature mushrooms accumulate more harmful substances, so the small ones are healthier.

2. Step 2:

   

   Wash the mushrooms, discarding any wormy ones and debris, and cut up the large caps. You can soak them in salted water for a couple of hours — any insects hiding inside will float out, and the mushrooms will rinse cleaner.

3. Step 3:

   

   After soaking, rinse the mushrooms again, put them in an enameled pot, cover with cold water, and set over the heat. Bring to a boil, drain the water, rinse the mushrooms, and return them to the pot.

4. Step 4:

   

   Pour cold water into a separate pot. Add the spices: bay leaf, peppercorns, cloves, and salt. Bring to a boil and simmer for a few minutes.

5. Step 5:

   

   Pour the boiling marinade over the mushrooms in the pot, add the rinsed dill, lower the heat to its minimum, and cook the mushrooms for 20 minutes. Then pour in the vinegar essence, let the marinade boil, and cook a couple more minutes. Turn off the heat.

6. Step 6:

   

   While the mushrooms cook, prepare the jars. Wash and sterilize them however you like. I always sterilize jars in the oven — it gets a lot of sterile jars done fast. Set the damp jars neck-down on a rack in a cold oven, set it to 300°F (150°C), and leave them for about 15 minutes (for 1-pint / 0.5 L jars).

7. Step 7:

   

   Pack the mushrooms into the sterilized jars and fill them with the marinade left in the pot, up to the shoulders of the jars.

8. Step 8:

   

   Cover the jars with lids and process them in a pot of water — 10 minutes for 1-pint (0.5 L) jars. Seal the jars, let them cool at room temperature, and store them in a cool place. Come winter, serve the pickled mushrooms as an appetizer on their own (delicious with a drizzle of oil and some green onion) or use them in salads.