The Mushroom, now so easily produced artificially that it is
procurable all the year round, is perhaps one of the most
valuable assistants that we possess in cookery. Unfortunately
mushrooms are exposed for sale too commonly in a condition
wholly unfit for the kitchen—black, sodden, and honey-combed.
Unless quite fresh, pink in the gills, and firm, they should be
rejected.
In order to keep mushrooms white for garnishing purposes it
is the practice of French cooks to saturate them with lemon
juice, and thus for the sake of appearance the flavour of the
fungus is impaired. If selected carefully as I have described
(and it is worth while to pay a little more for the privilege),
neatly peeled, their stalks trimmed close, and then cooked in
blanc or milk, button mushrooms can be kept quite light
coloured enough for entrées, and their better flavour quite
makes up for their slight dulness.
The process of blanching them for garnishes in the French
manner may be thus described:—As each mushroom is pre-
pared cast it into a basin of cold water well sharpened with
lemon juice. When all are ready, having been thus marinaded,
drain and fry them for seven or eight minutes in butter in
a stew-pan with pepper, salt, and the juice of a lemon, tossing
them occasionally; then empty them into a bowl, and cover
them with pepper till wanted.
Avoid washing a mushroom if you possibly can: wipe them,
peel off the skin, trim the stalks, and tap the top of each of
them so that any grit in the gills may be expelled. A fresh
mushroom, properly gathered, is quite clean after the process I
have indicated; stale and bruised ones may require a bath, but
these should not be purchased. Put all the trimmings of skin
and stalk into a saucepan with salt and pepper, and enough
water to float them well; boil, simmer for fifteen minutes, and
strain through fine muslin—for there may be grit in these
pieces. This fresh ketchup is most useful for stews and sauces,
for moistening mushrooms au gratin, or any sauce in which the
fungi from which it was extracted appear.
Mushrooms for garnishing purposes should be of the button
size, though if not procurable, larger ones cut into convenient
pieces may be used instead.
To eat independently these excellent fungi can be stewed
(brown or white), broiled, or baked. They make a capital purée,
in which form they can be presented as a sauce or garnish, or
be introduced in an omelette. Their flavour is such that I
think it a mistake to blend any other distinctly tasty thing with
them. The simpler their treatment the better. For this
reason a true connoisseur, as a rule, would sooner have a broiled
mushroom with his fillet than one stuffed with ham and chopped
truffles; or a dish of them au gratin with plain pepper, salt,
and butter, than one swimming in creamy béchamel.
The purée is made in this way:—
Prepare, in the manner I have explained, eight or ten
ounces of fresh mushrooms; put them into a stew-pan with
the ketchup made from the trimmings carefully strained, a
coffee-cupful of milk, a pinch of salt and one of pepper; bring
to the boil for two minutes only; simmer for a quarter of an
hour, then remove the pan from the fire: let the mushrooms
cool in the liquid, then drain, wipe them, pound and pass them
through the sieve, using half an ounce of butter to assist the
operation. Take half a pint of sauce blonde or velouté, add the
mushroom liquid, and stir over the fire till the sauce coats the
spoon, then add the purée. Set in the bain-marie till wanted.
If required brown proceed in the same way, but use domestic
espagnole instead of white sauce for the final blending.
Trufffles, when procurable fresh, must be very carefully
cleaned, a tough-bristled brush being used to get the earth
out of the corrugated skin, chinks, and indentations; when
thoroughly cleaned, peel and put them into a small stew-pan
with equal portions of chicken broth and madeira in quantity
enough to cover them, a tablespoonful of clarified suet or stock-
pot fat, an onion, two cloves, a faggot of herbs, and one clove of
garlic. Stew for fifteen minutes closely covered, and empty into
a bowl to cool in the liquid in which they were boiled. When
cold they may be trimmed if necessary for garnishing purposes,
the trimmings being carefully saved for sauces with the liquid,
which should be freed from the fat and strained. The parings
of the rough outside skin are not to be used.
Fresh English truffles should be cooked in this way as soon
as possible, for the flavour soon deteriorates.
Morels are not often seen in the market, but they grow in
England for all that, and are very useful in ragouts, stews, &c.
They have the character of being digestible, and are specially
nice stewed when freshly gathered. Treat them as you would
mushrooms in the cooking.