No. 2761

Mushrooms Served Under a Glass Cover and with Cream

Champignons Servis Sous Cloche en Verre et a la Creme

Have some round slices of bread three inches in diameter and three-eighths of an inch thick. Cut off the stalks from some very fresh mushroom heads, channel (No. 118) and saute; range these on the slices of bread (the heads downward); season with salt and pepper and lay a single slice on a dish so that each individual guest can be supplied with a separate one. Cover with a bell made either of glass or silver and push them into the oven for twenty minutes. After removing lift off the bells and cover the mushrooms with a white wine veloute sauce (No. 415) or a white wine espagnole sauce (No. 492).

Under a Glass Cover with Cream.—Fry some turned mushroom heads in butter; moisten with fresh cream, season with salt and pepper; cover and simmer until the cream becomes partially reduced. Have slices of bread prepared the same as for the above, put a slice on each plate, and on these dress the mushrooms in a pyramid form, pouring a part of their liquid over each; put on the bells and lay them to bake in a slack oven for twenty minutes, then serve with the bells still on.

← No. 2760 Mushrooms Sauted with Thickened Butter and B Mushrooms & Truffles No. 2762 Mushrooms Stuffed in Cases with Madeira—Mous →

For the Modern Kitchen

Two related preparations of whole mushroom caps baked under a dome and sauced. The equipment is the obstacle, not the technique.

The bell ("cloche")A domed glass or silver cover set directly on the plate, so the mushrooms bake in their own trapped steam and aroma. A heatproof glass bowl or small ovenproof cocotte lid inverted over the bread works; ordinary tumblers and thin decorative glass will crack. Modern glass cloches sold for cheese boards are usually not oven-safe.
Slack ovenAround 275-300F. The first version says only "the oven"; treat it as moderate, 325-350F, since it is finishing an already sautéed mushroom rather than cooking it through.
Channelling and turningRanhofer's No. 118 is his cross-reference for channelling (fluting) a mushroom cap: shallow decorative grooves cut with the point of a knife. In classical French usage a "turned" cap generally means the same fluted cut rather than a different one. Either way it is decoration only; skip if you like.
MushroomsThese are cultivated button or cup mushrooms, and the recipe insists on very fresh heads. Use closed-cap white or cremini of uniform size; large flat mushrooms release too much water and collapse under the dome.
The breadThree-inch rounds, three-eighths of an inch thick, cut from a close-crumbed white loaf. Toast or fry them in butter first, otherwise twenty minutes under a cover with cream and mushroom liquor turns them to paste.
The saucesNo. 415 is the white wine veloute, No. 492 the white wine espagnole, a brown sauce; both are cross-referenced, not given here. Either can be replaced by a reduced stock sauce; a plain bechamel is thinner in flavour but workable.
The cream versionSimmer the caps in cream only until it coats, not until it breaks. It reduces further under the bell, so pull it while still loose. Heavy cream holds; half-and-half or milk will split.
Yield and serviceOne round of bread per person, dished separately for each guest. In the cream version the bell goes to the table still in place; in the first version the recipe has the bells lifted off after baking so the sauce can be added.

A Little History

Cooking under a bell -- sous cloche -- was a late nineteenth-century restaurant device that turned the plate itself into a sealed vessel, so that the perfume of mushrooms, or of a small bird, reached the diner intact rather than dissipating on the way from the kitchen. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York for more than thirty years, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a complete record of that kitchen's repertoire, and the glass or silver dome suited the room he cooked for: the dish arrived covered, was uncovered at the table, and the effect was part of what was purchased. The cultivated mushroom itself was still something of a luxury in America at that date, grown in caves and cellars and sold in small quantities, which is why a handful of caps on a round of bread could stand as a course of its own. Ranhofer's cross-references to numbered sauces are typical of the book, which is built to be used by a brigade that already had velouté and espagnole standing on the stove.