Part 5 (1/2)

_Another Method._--In pickling mushrooms take the b.u.t.tons only and while they are quite close, cut the stem off even with the gills and rub them quite clean. Lay them in salt and water for forty-eight hours, and then add pepper, and vinegar in which black pepper and a little mace have been boiled. The vinegar must be applied cold. So pickled they will keep for years.

_Mushrooms en Ragot._--Put into a stew-pan a little stock, a small quant.i.ty of vinegar, parsley, and green onions chopped up, salt, and spices. When this is about to boil, the mushrooms being cleaned, put them in. When done remove them from the fire, and thicken with yolks of eggs.

_Mushrooms and Toast._--Peel the mushrooms, and take out the stems. Fry them over a quick fire. When the b.u.t.ter is melted take off the pan.

Squeeze the juice of a lemon into it. Let the mushrooms fry again for some minutes. Add salt, pepper, spices, and a spoonful of water, in which a clove of garlic, having been cut into pieces, has soaked for half an hour; let it stew. When the mushrooms are done, make a thickening of yolks of eggs. Pour the mushrooms on bread fried in b.u.t.ter, and laid in the dish ready for them.

_Mushrooms en Caisse._--Peel the mushrooms lightly, and cut them into pieces. Put them into cases of b.u.t.tered paper, with a bit of b.u.t.ter, parsley, green onions, and shalots chopped up, salt and pepper. Dress them on the gridiron over a gentle fire, and serve in the cases.

_Mushrooms a la Provencale._--Take mushrooms of good size. Remove the stems, and soak them in olive oil. Cut up the stems with a clove of garlic and some parsley. Add meat of sausages, and two yolks of eggs to unite them. Dish the mushrooms, and garnish them with the forcemeat.

Sprinkle them with fine oil, and dress them in an oven, or in a _four de campagne_.

_Baked Mushrooms._--Peel the tops of twenty mushrooms; cut off a portion of the stalks, and wipe them carefully with a piece of flannel dipped in salt. Lay the mushrooms in a tin dish, put a small piece of b.u.t.ter on the top of each, and season them with pepper and salt. Set the dish in the oven, and bake them from twenty minutes to half an hour. When done, arrange them high in the centre of a very hot dish, pour the sauce round them, and serve quickly, and as hot as you possibly can.

_Mushrooms au Gratin._--Take twelve large mushrooms about two inches in diameter, pare the stalks, wash, and drain the mushrooms on a cloth; cut off and chop the stalks. Put in a quart stew-pan an ounce of b.u.t.ter and half an ounce of flour; stir over the fire for two minutes; then add one pint of broth; stir till reduced to half the quant.i.ty. Drain the chopped stalks of the mushrooms thoroughly in a cloth; put them in the sauce with three table-spoonfuls of chopped and washed parsley, one table-spoonful of chopped and washed shalot, two pinches of salt, a small pinch of pepper; reduce on a brisk fire for eight minutes, put two table-spoonfuls of oil in a _saute_ pan; set the mushrooms in, the hollow part upwards; fill them with the fine herbs, and sprinkle over them lightly a table-spoonful of raspings; put in a brisk oven for ten minutes, and serve.

_Mushroom Soup._--Take a good quant.i.ty of mushrooms, cut off the earthy end, and pick and wash them. Stew them with some b.u.t.ter, pepper, and salt in a little good stock till tender; take them out, and chop them up quite small; prepare a good stock as for any other soup, and add it to the mushrooms and the liquor they have been stewed in. Boil all together, and serve. If white soup be desired, use the white b.u.t.ton mushrooms, and a good veal stock, adding a spoonful of cream or a little milk, as the colour may require.

The following ”family receipts” have been communicated by a friend:

Clean a dozen or so of medium-size, place two or three ounces of nice clean beef-dripping in the frying-pan, and with it a table-spoonful or more of nice beef gravy. Set the pan on a gentle fire, and as the dripping melts place in the mushrooms, adding salt and pepper to taste.

In a few minutes they will be cooked, and being soaked in the gravy and served upon a hot plate, will form a capital dish. In the absence of gravy, a _soupcon_ of ”extractum carnis” may be subst.i.tuted.

_Mushrooms with Bacon._--Take some full-grown mushrooms, and having cleaned them, procure a few rashers of nice streaky bacon, and fry it in the usual manner. When nearly done, add a dozen or so of mushrooms, and fry them slowly until they are cooked. In this process they will absorb all the fat of the bacon, and with the addition of a little salt and pepper, will form a most appetising breakfast relish.

_Mushroom Stems_, if young and fresh, make a capital dish for those who are not privileged to eat the mushrooms. Rub them quite clean, and after was.h.i.+ng them in salt and water, slice them to the thickness of a s.h.i.+lling, then place them in a saucepan with sufficient milk to stew them tender; throw in a piece of b.u.t.ter and some flour for thickening, and salt and pepper to taste. Serve upon a toast of bread, in a hot dish, and add sippets of toasted bread. This makes a light and very delicate supper dish, and is not bad sauce to a boiled fowl.

CHAPTER XII.

SOME OF THE MOST COMMON AND USEFUL EDIBLE FUNGI.

”Whole hundredweights of rich, wholesome diet rotting under the trees; woods teeming with food, and not one hand to gather it; and this, perhaps, in the midst of potato-blight, poverty, and all manner of privations, and public prayers against imminent famine.”

_Dr. Badham._

VALUABLE as is the common mushroom, it is indisputable that not a few other kinds are also capable of affording excellent food. Therefore, figures are given of the most prevalent, useful, and easily recognised kinds of edible fungi, as well as of the common mushrooms of our gardens and markets. These figures have been admirably drawn by Mr. W. G. Smith, and are accompanied by what seemed the most satisfactory accounts of the characters and properties that are obtainable. The spores which accompany the figures are uniformly enlarged seven hundred diameters.

_Marasmius oreades_ (Fairy-ring Champignon).

_Pileus_ smooth, fleshy, convex, sub.u.mbonate, generally more or less compressed, tough, coriaceous, elastic, wrinkled; when water-soaked, brown; when dry, of a buff or cream-colour, the umbo often remaining red-brown, as if scorched; _gills_ free, distant, ventricose, of the same tint as the pileus, but more pale; _stem_ equal, solid, twisted, very tough and fibrous, of a pale silky-white colour.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 30--1. _Marasmius oreades_ (Fairy-ring Champignon).

Pastures, roadsides, and downs, in the autumn; colour, pale buff; _gills broad and far apart_; diameter, 1 to 2 inches.

Fig. 30--2. _Marasmius urens_ (False Champignon). Woods and pastures in the autumn; colour, pale buff; _gills narrow and crowded together_; diameter, inch to 1 inches.]

The fairy-ring agaric is a valuable little fungus, and common on almost every lawn. In hilly pastures it generally appears in broad brown patches, either circular or forming a portion of a circle.