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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 cupful of cold water, into an enamelled stewpan, into which throw each mushroom as it is peeled; add an ounce 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 flavouring dishes or soups.
MUSHROOMS FOR GARNISH (another way). (See GARNISH, MUSHROOMS FOR.)
A working method for blanched white button mushrooms, cooked briefly in acidulated water so they stay pale enough to sit on top of a dish. Almost everything here is still sound practice.
- The point of the lemonThe acid is what keeps the caps white rather than grey-brown, and it is the hinge of the recipe. Cut mushrooms into the lemon water as you go, not after, or they will discolour before they reach the pan.
- PeelingPeeling was the routine Victorian convention, whether the mushrooms came from a field or a market gardener; the recipe's 'fresh-gathered' does not tell us which. Cultivated buttons need no peeling at all; trim the stem base and wipe or briefly rinse.
- "A small cupful"Read this as about 4-6 fl oz (120-175 ml) — enough liquid to keep the caps moving. With the ounce (30 g) of butter that gives a shallow, buttery blanching liquor rather than a boil in water.
- An enamelled stewpanSpecified because bare iron and unlined copper react with acid and darken mushrooms. Any stainless steel or enamelled saucepan does the job; avoid cast iron and aluminium here.
- Five minutesFive minutes at a fast boil is right for small buttons and leaves them firm. Larger caps go spongy and shed water if left longer, so keep them small or halve them.
- The trimmingsStems and peelings simmered in the leftover liquor make a mushroom essence worth keeping — reduce it and it becomes a strong seasoning for a sauce or soup. It will be pale and lemony, so add it before final seasoning.
- QuantityNo yield is given. About 8 oz (225 g) of buttons garnishes a dish for four to six; the butter and lemon quantities scale up in step.
Cassell's belongs to the era when the mushroom was moving from a foraged luxury to a market vegetable: commercial cultivation in caves, cellars and disused quarries expanded through the nineteenth century, first around Paris — hence champignon de Paris — and then in England, where growers supplied hotels and large households. The insistence on "fresh-gathered" buttons and on peeling reflects both origins at once, since a Victorian cook might be handed anything from a basket of field mushrooms to a punnet from a market gardener. Lemon-blanching remains the standard method in classical French practice, where the same technique is generally described as cooking mushrooms à blanc.