Pickled Shiitake Mushrooms 2-Pack

A long, low ferment over twenty-eight days, and the length is doing something specific here. Shiitake are unusually high in natural glutamates — the compounds behind savoury depth — and a slow ferment concentrates them rather than washing them out. The result is closer to a savoury preserve than to a pickle.

Only king oyster takes longer, and for a different reason: there it is density. Here it is flavour development. Every duration in the range came out of tasting, matched to the mushroom and to what we wanted from it. Then the sealed jar rests about a month before release, which rounds off the edges the ferment leaves.

Filtered water, oak-aged vinegar, tamari, garlic, bay leaf, black peppercorns and sea salt.

This is the only jar we build on tamari, and it is the reason the whole thing reads as savoury rather than sharp. Tamari brings salt and a second layer of glutamates on top of the mushroom's own — the two compound rather than compete. Oak-aged vinegar adds a smoky, woody note that a plain wine vinegar has no way of reaching, and it is the right partner for a mahogany-capped mushroom. Bay underneath, peppercorns for lift.

Contains soy, by way of the tamari. It is the one jar in the range that does.

The most savoury jar we make, and the one that behaves least like a pickle. Where the shimejis are bright and crimini is familiar, this one is deep.

King oyster is the other jar at the heavy end, but it goes rich and aromatic with truffle oil where this goes dark and umami with tamari. Of the two, this is the more useful in cooking and that is the more impressive on a plate. White shimeji is at the opposite end of the range entirely, and black shimeji is the closest thing we make to a midpoint between the two — savoury, but nothing like this savoury.

The one jar we would genuinely cook with, because the flavour is robust enough to survive contact with other things.

Chopped into a bowl of ramen or a broth it works like a seasoning — the brine included. Good stirred through rice, or folded into scrambled eggs off the heat. On a board they go with the strong end: aged cheese, cured meat, anything smoked. And a spoonful of the liquid will do more for a pan sauce or a dressing than an equivalent spoon of soy, because it brings acid as well as salt.

Every jar is 480g net, 250g drained, and keeps sealed in a cupboard for twelve months. Once it is open it lives in the fridge and is best inside four weeks — though the brine keeps working the whole time, so the last forkful is a little sharper than the first. That is fermentation doing what it does, not the jar going over.