Harper's cook book encyclopædia

Mushrooms, Creamed. — Peel large, fresh mushrooms. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Put in a saucepan with a little water. To a quart of mushrooms add a table-spoonful of butter. Let simmer ten minutes. Pour in a pint of cream, in which should be mixed a table-spoonful of corn-starch. Stir two or three minutes, and take up. Mushrooms, Devilled. — Chop one quart of peeled mushrooms. Season with salt, pepper, and lemon-juice. Mix the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs and two raw eggs together, and stir in with one pint of bread-crumbs and one large table-spoonful of butter. Fill little shells with the mixture, cover with grated crackers and bits of butter. Set in the oven to brown. Mushrooms, Fricassee of. — Peel a quart of mushrooms. Put in boiling Mushrooms for Garnish VEGETABLES Mushroom Toast water, then in cold water. Take out and wipe dry. Melt a table-spoonful of butter in a saucepan and lay in the mushrooms. Keep over the fire and stir. Add flour to thicken, with pepper, salt, thyme, and mace. Pour in a teacupful of soup stock and let simmer half an hour. Take out the mushrooms ; strain the gravy, to which add the beaten yolks of three eggs and the juice of a lemon. Arrange the mushrooms on thin slices of buttered toast and pour the sauce over. Serve hot. Mushrooms for Garnish. — Take fresh - gathered button - mushrooms, cut off the stems, and wash them in a little cold water, then drain. Have ready squeezed the juice of half a lemon, put it with a small cup of cold water into an enamelled stewpan, into which throw each mushroom as it is peeled ; /add I oz. of butter and a little salt. Place the stewpan over the fire, bring it quickly to a boil, and in five minutes use the mushrooms as required. A good cook will know how to utilize the stems and peel of the mushrooms. In this case they may be chopped small and stewed in the gravy left after boiling the buttons. These trimmings are useful for flavoring dishes or soups. Mushrooms, Grilled. — Cut the stalks, peel, and score lightly the under side of large mushroom flaps, which should be firm, and fresh gathered. Season them with pepper and salt, and steep them in a marinade of oil or melted butter. If quite sound they may be laid on a gridiron over a slow, even fire, and grilled on both sides, but they are best done in the oven if at all bruised. Either way, serve with a sauce of melted butter, or on a hot dish, with a piece of butter on each mushroom, and a squeeze of lemon-juice. Time, about twelve minutes to grill ; forty minutes to steep in marinade. Mushroom Omelet.— Make a plain omelet. When ready to turn, drop some freshly prepared mushrooms in the centre, fold over, and take up. Pour stewed mushrooms around the omelet, and serve. Mushrooms en Ragout. — Put half a pint of soup stock in a saucepan with l/z lb. of butter and a little chopped parsley. Set on the stove ; when hot, lay in a quart of peeled and stemmed mushrooms ; take from the fire and set aside for an hour, then put back on the stove. Sprinkle in a table-spoonful of browned flour, and stir until smooth. Add a cupful of boiling water, a wineglassful of Madeira wine, and the juice of a lemon. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with roast veal or a fillet of beef.