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Broiled Mushrooms
Cleanse the large mushrooms by wiping with flannel and a little salt. Cut off stalks and peel the tops; broil them over a clear fire, turning them once. Arrange on a hot dish. Put a small piece of butter on each mushroom, season with pepper and salt; squeeze over them a little lemon juice. Place before the fire, and when the butter is melted, serve quickly.--Mrs. C. C.
A four-line recipe that depends almost entirely on heat and timing. The whole point is to drive off water fast enough that the caps brown rather than stew in their own juice.
- The hinge: high, dry heatMushrooms are mostly water, so a slack fire steams them grey and limp. Use a broiler element preheated 10 minutes with the rack 3-4 inches beneath it, or a grill pan or charcoal fire hot enough to sear. Three to five minutes a side for a large cap.
- "A clear fire"This means coals or a wood fire burned down past the smoking stage, with no flame licking the food. A modern gas or electric broiler at full heat is the nearest practical equivalent.
- Wiping, not washingThe flannel-and-salt instruction is sound: soaking waterlogs the caps and defeats the browning. A damp cloth or soft brush does the job. The salt here appears to act as a mild abrasive rather than as seasoning at this stage.
- Which mushrooms"Large mushrooms" in 1870s Virginia would most often have been field mushrooms, gathered or bought in season. Portobello or large cremini caps behave much the same way. If you are gathering wild, identify by an authority, not by resemblance.
- Peeling the topsField mushrooms of that era often had tough, gritty cuticles. Cultivated caps do not need peeling; scrape out the dark gills only if you want to keep juices from running black over the dish.
- Gill side upNot stated but worth doing: finish with the hollow side facing up so the butter and lemon pool in the cap instead of dripping into the fire.
- "Place before the fire"Simply a warm spot to melt the butter without further cooking. A low oven at 200F for a minute, or the residual warmth of a heated platter, does the same.
- YieldReckon three or four large caps per person as a savoury or side; two as a garnish for steak.
Broiled mushrooms belong to the English savoury tradition that Virginia cookery inherited wholesale -- a small hot dish of something intensely flavoured, served on toast or alongside grilled meat, at the end of dinner or at breakfast. Housekeeping in Old Virginia, compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree and published in 1878, is a collection of contributions from named and initialled Virginia housekeepers, which is why this one carries the signature "Mrs. C. C." rather than an author's byline. Commercial mushroom growing in the United States is generally dated to the 1880s and 1890s, with scattered earlier attempts, so a recipe like this was seasonal by necessity, and the instruction to peel the tops reflects caps that had come in from a pasture rather than a crate. The butter-pepper-lemon finish is the standard Anglo-American treatment of the period and has survived essentially unchanged.