The encyclopaedia of practical cookery

Forcemeat of Mushrooms. -Take Jib. of button Mushrooms, peel off the upper skin, cut off the stems, and put them, after pounding in a mortar, into a saucepan with 2oz. of butter ; put in the Mushrooms, and stew slowly for seven or eight minutes, adding a little cayenne and ground allspice. Put them on a plate, leaning against one another so that the fat will drain, and let them get cold ; then chop them up fine, add Jib. of breadcrumbs, season with a little grated nutmeg, cayenne, mace, and salt, add a little butter, and mix the whole with the yolks of two eggs to make the mass firm, and pour in sufficient of the gravy from the Mushrooms to make it of the desired thickness. Form it into balls, and either poach them six minutes for soup, or fry them for seven minutes in butter, and use them to garnish roast poultry. For details respecting Culinary Processes, Utensils, Sauces, &c., referred to, see under their special heads. Mushrooms — continued. Fricassee of Mushrooms. — Select large Mushrooms, peel, put them on a gridiron over a clear fire, and broil until the outsides are brown. Now put them into a stewpan with a little milk, stew for ten minutes, then add 2 or 3 table spoonfuls each of white wine and browning, thicken with a liaison of Hour and butter, turn all out on to a hot dish, and serve with croutons of fried bread. Fried Mushrooms.— Trim off the stalks and remove the skins from some very large Mushrooms ; put them, the hollow, side up, in a frying-pan with a little butter or lard, dust over with salt and pepper, and fry them very gently until quite tender. Put the Mushrooms on a dish, pour the gravy over, and serve. Fried Mushrooms on Toast. -Clean the Mushrooms, chop them very finely, put them in a stewpan with a goodsized lump of butter, season to taste with salt, pepper, pounded mace, and a small quantity of cayenne, and toss about over the fire. Cut two or three slices of bread off a tin-loaf, and toast them a delicate brown on both sides ; butter them while hot, cut into quarters, put them on a hot dish, cover with the Mushrooms, and serve. Fumet of Mushrooms. — This is much used by artistic cooks. It is prepared as follows: Clean some Mushrooms, and chop them up very small. -Put them into a flat stewpan with some salt over them, the juice of one lemon to every Jib. of Mushrooms, and a piece of fresh butter as large as a fowl’s egg. Let the contents of the pan, with the lid on, stew very slowly at blood-heat only, and in the course of a little time a very strongly-flavoured juice will have exuded from the Mushrooms. Artistic cooks use this fumet in preference to the best ketchup ever made. Imitation Mushrooms. — Put some Italian meringue paste in a biscuit-forcer, and squeeze it out in the shape of long corks and in round drops to represent the head of the Mushrooms. Dust over very lightly with grated chocolate, and dry them in a hot closet or mouth of the oven. Put two of the long pieces together to represent the stalks and push the thin end into the inside part of the heads. Dip the broad end of the stalk into the white of egg and then in grated chocolate to give it a more natural colour, and they are then ready, and can be served at once.