No. 118

To Turn, Channel and Flute Mushrooms

Pour Tourner et Canneler les Champignons

Choose the freshest mushrooms and those of equal size, cut off the stems, wipe well the heads, and take them one by one in the left hand, the hollow side underneath, then with the tip of a small pointed knife cut away the peel in regular rings without destroying the mushrooms, and turn from right to left pressing all the time against the tip of the small knife; this must be done quickly and let us observe that it is not on the first trial that a mushroom can be properly turned, it takes practice to accomplish this properly. As quickly as each one is done, throw it into a saucepan containing cold, acidulated water, just sufficient to cover, then drain off the water, and cook the mushrooms for seven or eight minutes with the lid on, adding salt, butter and lemon juice, to keep them as white as possible. As for fluting mushrooms, this art is only learned after long experience. Mushroom fluting has become almost a profession, and the difficulties to be overcome can be better understood on examining those pretty mushroom heads so delicately carved, we see displayed by all preserve manufacturers.

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For the Modern Kitchen

This is a garnish technique with a short cooking method attached: mushroom caps carved into a spiral pattern, then stewed white in butter and lemon. The carving is optional; the cooking method beneath it is worth keeping.

What "turning" meansTourner here is not trimming to a barrel shape as with vegetables; the text has the cap pared of its peel "in regular rings" while it is rotated. The radiating grooves that make a spiral rosette belong to the fluting (canneler) the recipe treats as a separate and harder art. The mushroom is rotated against a more or less fixed blade rather than the blade being drawn across the mushroom.
The knifeThe recipe asks only for "a small pointed knife"; a paring or bird's-beak (tourné) knife with a very keen tip suits the work. A dull blade tears the cap skin instead of peeling it away cleanly, which may be what Ranhofer means by "destroying the mushrooms."
Choice of mushroomFirm, tightly closed white button caps of uniform size, 1 to 1.5 inches across. Open caps with exposed gills collapse under the knife, and brown-capped varieties defeat the whole point, which is whiteness.
Acidulated waterCold water with about a tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar per quart. It holds off enzymatic browning on the freshly cut surfaces while you work through the rest of the batch.
Quantities are not givenFor a pound of caps, allow roughly 2 tablespoons butter, the juice of half a lemon and a pinch of salt; the soaking water is drained off first. Cover tightly so the mushrooms steam in their own liquid rather than frying.
Seven or eight minutes is rightUnusually for a book of this vintage, the timing needs no correction. Covered over moderate heat, small caps are cooked through and still firm at that point; much longer and they shrink, grey and turn spongy.
Keep the cooking liquidThe strained liquor is the kind of mushroom essence used elsewhere in The Epicurean to finish white sauces, though this recipe does not say to save it. Do not pour it away.
Yield and useA pound of caps gives garnish for roughly a dozen plates. These are decoration for dishes such as vol-au-vents, poached fish, sweetbreads and chicken in cream sauce, not a dish on their own.
On flutingRanhofer's admission that fluting takes "long experience" is honest. Expect to sacrifice a dozen mushrooms before one looks presentable, and cut the grooves shallow; deep ones break the cap when it shrinks in cooking.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer wrote The Epicurean (1894) out of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the book's Elementary Methods section reads as the training groundwork of a French brigade transplanted to Manhattan. Turned and fluted mushrooms belonged to the decorative vocabulary of nineteenth-century service, where a garnish announced the rank of a dish as much as it flavoured it. The mushrooms in question were cultivated white buttons, the champignon de Paris, grown commercially in cellars and disused quarries from the early nineteenth century. His remark that fluting "has become almost a profession" is tied in the text itself to the preserve manufacturers, whose delicately carved mushroom heads he points to. The whiteness he works so hard to protect, with acid water, butter and lemon and a tight lid, was the visible proof of care, since mushrooms handled slowly or bruised go grey and there is no fixing them afterwards.