BAKED MUSHROOMS.
(A Breakfast, Luncheon, or Supper Dish.)
1124. INGREDIENTS.—16 to 20 mushroom-flaps, butter, pepper to taste.
Mode.—For this mode of cooking, the mushroom flaps are better than the buttons, and should not be too large. Cut off a portion of the stalk, peel the top, and wipe the mushrooms carefully with a piece of flannel and a little fine salt. Put them into a tin baking-dish, with a very small piece of butter placed on each mushroom; sprinkle over a little pepper, and let them bake for about 20 minutes, or longer should the mushrooms be very large. Have ready a very hot dish, pile the mushrooms high in the centre, pour the gravy round, and send them to table quickly, with very hot plates.
Time.—20 minutes; large mushrooms, 1/2 hour.
Average cost, 1d. each for large mushroom-flaps.
Sufficient for 5 or 6 persons.
Seasonable.—Meadow mushrooms in September and October; cultivated mushrooms may be had at any time.
FUNGI.—These are common parasitical plants, originating in the production of copious filamentous threads, called the mycelium, or spawn. Rounded tubers appear on the mycelium; some of these enlarge rapidly, burst an outer covering, which is left at the base, and protrude a thick stalk, bearing at its summit a rounded body, which in a short time expands into the pileus or cap. The gills, which occupy its lower surface, consist of parallel plates, bearing naked sporules over their whole surface. Some of the cells, which are visible by the microscope, produce four small cells at their free summit, apparently by germination and constriction. These are the sporules, and this is the development of the Agarics.