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Baked Mushrooms
Peel the tops of 20 good-sized mushrooms. Cut off a portion of the stalks, wipe the remaining portion with salt on a flannel cloth. Put them in a baking-dish, pour a little melted butter over them, season with salt and white pepper, and 2 tablespoonfuls of madeira wine; cover and bake in a rather slow over twenty to thirty minutes. As soon as done pile the mushrooms on a hot dish, and serve quickly with the sauce poured around them.
A straightforward baked mushroom dish that depends almost entirely on the mushrooms giving up their liquid slowly into butter and wine. The instructions assume large, mature field mushrooms rather than the small cultivated buttons most markets sell.
- The mushroomsTwenty "good-sized" mushrooms most likely means open-capped field or horse mushrooms rather than small buttons. Large portobellos or open-gilled cremini are the closest supermarket equivalent; if you use small buttons, use more of them and shorten the baking.
- Peeling and wipingPeeling the caps was standard when mushrooms came in gritty from a field or a manure bed. Cultivated mushrooms need no peeling at all - a dry brush or a damp cloth is enough, and the salt-on-flannel trick is now unnecessary.
- Oven temperatureA "rather slow" oven is about 300-325F. The low heat is deliberate: it draws the juices out gradually so they combine with the butter and madeira instead of scorching.
- Keep it coveredThe cover is the hinge of the recipe. Uncovered, the small amount of butter and wine evaporates and the mushrooms roast dry; covered, they braise in their own liquor and produce the sauce the last line refers to.
- QuantitiesNo amount of butter is given. Reckon on 2-3 tablespoons for twenty large caps - enough to coat, not to pool, since the mushrooms will release several tablespoons of liquid of their own.
- MadeiraAny medium-dry madeira works; a dry oloroso sherry is a reasonable substitute. Two tablespoons for twenty mushrooms is a seasoning rather than a braising liquid, so do not increase it much or the sauce turns sharp.
- TimingTwenty to thirty minutes is right for large caps at this temperature. They are done when the caps are soft through and there is visible liquid in the dish; smaller mushrooms will be ready in 15.
- Yield and servingTwenty large caps serve four as a side or savoury course. Warm the serving dish - mushrooms and their thin buttery sauce go tepid within a minute or two on cold china, which is why the original insists on speed.