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Fricassee of Mushrooms
Select some large mushrooms, peel, put them on a gridiron over a clear fire, and broil until the outsides are brown. Then put them into a stewpan with a small quantity of milk, stew for ten minutes, and add two or three tablespoonfuls each of white wine and browning, thicken with a liaison of flour and butter, turn out the whole on a hot dish, and serve with croutons of fried bread.
Fried Mushrooms on Toast Trim off the stems, and remove the skins from some very large mushrooms, chop very fine and put them into a stewpan with a good-sized lump of butter, season to taste with salt, pepper and pounded mace, and a little cayenne, and toss them about over the fire. Cut two or three slices of bread and toast them a delicate brown on both sides; butter while hot, cut into quarters, put them on a hot dish, cover with the mushrooms, and serve.
Two mushroom dishes run together in the original text, both built on large flat mushrooms — portobellos are the modern equivalent. Neither is difficult, but a couple of the ingredients need translating.
- Two recipes, not oneThe fricassee ends at "croutons of fried bread," and "Fried Mushrooms on Toast" is a separate dish that has run on into the same paragraph. Read them as such before you shop.
- "Browning"A bottled caramel colouring sold for darkening sauces and gravies, still available as gravy browning or Kitchen Bouquet. Two or three tablespoons is a great deal by modern taste; start with a teaspoon and judge the colour.
- Liaison of flour and butterMost likely beurre manié: equal parts soft butter and flour kneaded to a paste, whisked into the simmering liquid in small pieces. The original gives no quantities; about a tablespoon of each should be enough to thicken the milk for roughly a pound of mushrooms.
- Peeling mushroomsStandard practice when mushrooms arrived gritty and field-grown. Cultivated portobellos need only a wipe; scrape the gills out if you want the sauce to stay pale rather than turning grey-brown.
- Gridiron over a clear fireA grill grate over coals burned down past the smoking stage. A ridged grill pan or a very hot dry skillet gives the same browning; do it in batches so the mushrooms sear rather than steam.
- Pounded maceThe outer covering of the nutmeg seed, warmer and lighter than nutmeg itself. Ground mace is sold in most spice ranges; a pinch is enough for two or three slices of toast.
- Stewing timeTen minutes in milk is right for mushrooms already browned — long enough to thicken, short enough that they keep some texture. The milk will want watching, since it catches easily once the flour goes in.
- YieldAbout a pound of large mushrooms serves two as a savoury course or four on toast as an appetiser.
Oscar Tschirky's book collects the standing repertoire of a large hotel kitchen at the turn of the twentieth century, and mushrooms occupy a curious place in it: cultivated button mushrooms were by then being grown commercially in America, but the "very large mushrooms" specified here suggest the older tradition of field mushrooms, which would explain both the peeling and the assumption that a cook could pick out specimens broad enough to broil whole. The techniques are frankly English rather than French — a gridiron, gravy browning, pounded mace, buttered toast cut in quarters. Mushrooms on toast survived as a hotel and club savoury long after the fricassee style of finishing with beurre manié and a splash of white wine had gone out of ordinary domestic use.