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Mushrooms Au Gratin (Basin add half of the cheese)
a basin, add half of the cheese, milk, seasonings, and the egg well beaten.
Rub some au gratin dishes with the clove of garlic and then well butter them; divide the mixture into them; sprinkle the rest of the cheese on the top; dot with the butter, and cook in a moderate oven for forty minutes.
The page picks up mid-sentence: the ingredient list and the first step (chopping and pre-cooking the mushrooms) belong to the previous page. What survives is the assembly and baking, which is the part that needs translating.
- The missing first halfThe mixture almost certainly begins with cooked, chopped mushrooms, sweated in butter until they have given up their liquid and it has evaporated; the surviving text only tells us something has already gone into the basin. Raw mushrooms carry a great deal of water, and if they are not pre-cooked the egg-and-milk mixture is likely to weep.
- "Au gratin dishes"The plural tells us these are individual dishes rather than one large one: small shallow earthenware or metal dishes of the period. Ramekins or small gratin dishes will hold the mixture at roughly the depth the timing assumes.
- Moderate ovenAbout 350F (a moderate oven is conventionally read as somewhere in the 325-375F range). At that heat forty minutes suits an egg-and-milk mixture in small dishes, setting it gently rather than curdling it.
- The garlic rubCut the clove and rub the raw face over the inside of the dish, then discard it. It is a whisper of flavour, not an ingredient; buttering afterwards is what stops the gratin sticking.
- Proportions, since the list is lostA workable ratio for four small dishes is about 1 lb mushrooms, 3 oz grated cheese, half a cup of milk, one egg, salt, pepper and a scrape of nutmeg. Half the cheese goes into the mixture, half on top.
- The cheeseA recipe of this kind most likely intends a dry hard cheese such as a mature Cheddar or Parmesan. Anything young and elastic will string and release oil rather than brown.
- DonenessThe centre should be just set and barely trembling, with the top browned. If it is still liquid at forty minutes the mushrooms were wet; if it is grainy the oven ran hot.
- YieldFour small dishes as a first course or a light supper with bread; two as a main.
Fireproof earthenware and the increasingly reliable enclosed range made it practical in this period to cook and serve in the same vessel. Au gratin refers to the browned crust of cheese or crumbs formed under heat, and by this date the phrase was commonly used of dishes finished that way in small individual dishes, which is why the author can call the dishes themselves "au gratin dishes". Commercial mushroom cultivation in cellars and disused tunnels was expanding through the later nineteenth century, and mushrooms bound with egg and milk and enriched with cheese make a savoury course substantial enough to stand alone.