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Cream of Mushrooms
Wash and peel one quart of fresh mushrooms, put them into a quart of boiling water, and boil until tender enough to rub through a sieve; stir them in two quarts of cream soup, as follows: take two tablespoonfuls each of butter and flour, and mix until they bubble, then stir in one quart of hot milk and boiling water, a teacupful at a time. When all the water and milk have been used season with salt and pepper.
A plain white soup from the Waldorf's kitchen, written for cooks who already knew what a cream soup was. The proportions as printed are internally inconsistent, so read the whole thing before starting.
- The quantities do not reconcileThe quantities are loosely stated -- The recipe calls for stirring the mushroom purée into a quart of cream soup, then describes a base of one quart of hot milk plus an unstated amount of boiling water, presumably the further quart needed to reach two quarts. Taken that way the roux is two tablespoons each of butter and flour for roughly two quarts of liquid, which gives a soup barely thicker than milk. For a thicker result, count on about two tablespoons each per pint of liquid.
- A quart of mushroomsMushrooms were measured by volume. A quart of whole button mushrooms is roughly 8 to 12 oz by weight. Much of their flavour goes into the cooking water, so keep it and use it as the "boiling water" in the base rather than tipping it away.
- PeelingPeriod cookbooks routinely direct that mushrooms be washed and peeled. Modern buttons and creminis need neither: wipe them, trim the stem end, and leave the skin on for colour and flavour.
- A teacupfulIn American cookbooks of this era a teacup is usually reckoned at about six fluid ounces, three-quarters of a modern cup, though period tables vary. The point of adding it by the cupful is simply to keep the sauce smooth; a whisk and a steady stream do the same job.
- SievingBoil the mushrooms until fully soft, 15 to 20 minutes, then work them through a fine sieve or, more easily, purée in a blender and pass the result to catch fibres. A blender alone leaves a slightly grainy soup.
- Season at the end, and furtherSalt and pepper are the only seasoning given. A grating of nutmeg, a squeeze of lemon, or a little sherry stirred in off the heat all belong to the same tradition and lift what is otherwise a very quiet soup.
- YieldAs written the soup makes roughly two and a half quarts, enough for eight to ten as a first course.
Oscar Tschirky, the maître d'hôtel whose name fronted this 1896 volume, was not a cook but the man who ran the Waldorf's dining rooms, and the book reads like a working record of what the hotel actually sent out. Cream soups of this kind — a butter-and-flour liaison, milk, and a single dominant vegetable pushed through a sieve — were the backbone of the American hotel menu at the turn of the century, descended from the French potage crème and made possible by reliable commercial cream and milk delivery. Mushrooms were the luxury note: the cultivated button mushroom was still a specialty crop in the United States in the 1890s, grown in cellars and caves and priced accordingly, so a soup built on a full quart of them signalled an expensive kitchen. The straining through a sieve, tedious before mechanical purée equipment, was itself part of the expense — smoothness was the mark of a professional soup.