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Mushrooms Farcis
Mushrooms. One Shalot.
Ingredients.
One ounce of Butter.
One teaspoonful of chopped Parsley.
A tablespoonful of Bread-crumbs.
What survives here is the ingredient list only — the book gives no method, so treat this as a proportion guide for a stuffed-mushroom savoury rather than a set of steps.
- The missing methodThe book gives no method whatsoever, so what follows is one reasonable reconstruction rather than the original instruction: remove and chop the stalks, sweat them with the shallot in the butter, bind with the crumbs and parsley, pile into the caps and bake or grill until the caps are tender and the top browned. A modern oven at around 400F for 12-15 minutes suits medium caps.
- ShalotAn older spelling of shallot. One shallot for this quantity of stuffing is right if it is a true single shallot; if you have the large banana type, use half.
- One ounce of butterTwo tablespoons. It is doing two jobs — cooking the shallot and moistening the crumbs — so do not reduce it, or the filling will be dry and powdery.
- Bread-crumbsThe book does not say which kind. Fresh soft white crumbs work best here; dried crumbs absorb more butter and mushroom liquor and can set hard.
- Quantity of mushroomsThe original names no number, and the quantities given are small: one tablespoonful of crumbs with an ounce of butter will fill only a few caps, so scale up for more than a savoury for two or three people.
- Draw off the moistureThe hinge of any stuffed mushroom is water. Cook the chopped stalks until the pan is dry before adding the crumbs, and set the caps gill-side down on a hot pan for a minute first if they are very fresh, or the stuffing floats.
- SeasoningNo salt or pepper is listed. Season the stuffing to taste before it goes into the caps.
Farci is simply French for stuffed, and the half-anglicised title is of a kind common in late-Victorian and Edwardian high-class cookery, where kitchen French carried professional authority even when the dish was as plain as a mushroom with a spoonful of crumbs in it. If the dish belongs among the savouries, that would fit: the savoury was a small, salty, usually hot course served after the sweet at a formal English dinner, with little counterpart in French service, and mushrooms, anchovies, cheese and marrow toast were among its staples. Cultivated mushrooms were by this date grown commercially in beds in sheds, cellars and disused quarries, which is why a book like this can call for them without comment or season.