No. 692

Mushrooms a la Delsart Garnishing

Garniture de Champignons a la Delsart

Select twelve fine, large mushrooms, cut off the stalks and empty them partly with a vegetable spoon, being careful not to break them, then throw them gently into fresh acidulated water. Chop up finely two ounces of the mushroom parings, one ounce of onions, one clove of crushed garlic, and one teaspoonful of chopped parsley, heat well two ounces of butter in a saucepan, add the onions to fry colorless, then the garlic, and parsley, and finally the mushroom parings after these have reduced their moisture, put in two ounces of bread-crumbs, a pint of bechamel (No. 409), salt, pepper, and nutmeg, stirring in four raw egg-yolks, drain the mushrooms, and fill them with this preparation, having it slightly bomb-shaped on top, bestrew with bread-raspings, and pour over a little butter. Lay them on a baking-tin covered with slices of fat pork, place this in a hot oven to brown the forcemeat, and serve with a half-glaze sauce (No. 413) and Madeira.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A stuffed-mushroom garnish from Ranhofer's Delmonico's kitchen, built to sit around a roast rather than to be served alone. The parts are simple; the proportions and the cross-references are what need translating.

The hinge: a very thick bechamelA pint of ordinary pouring bechamel bound with four yolks will still be too loose to mound "bomb-shaped" on a mushroom cap. The recipe gives no consistency, but a stiff, well-reduced sauce appears to be what is wanted; cook it down until it holds its shape on the spoon, and you may need only part of the pint for twelve caps.
Oven temperatureThe book gives no temperatures; "a hot oven" is conventionally read as somewhere around 400-450F. The filling is already cooked, so the oven is only browning the crumb top and setting the yolks, which should not take long.
Bread-raspingsNot fresh crumbs. Raspings are the dried, grated outer crust of a stale loaf, coarser and drier than the two ounces of soft crumbs worked into the filling. Dried breadcrumbs or panko stand in.
Vegetable spoonA Parisian scoop -- what we call a melon baller. It hollows the cap without splitting the rim. A teaspoon works if you go slowly.
Acidulated waterCold water with lemon juice or a splash of vinegar, to stop the hollowed caps browning while you make the filling. Drain and pat dry before stuffing or the crumb topping will go soggy.
Slices of fat porkBarding fat -- fresh unsmoked pork fatback, laid down to keep the mushroom bases from scorching and to baste them. Thinly sliced pancetta or blanched streaky bacon does the same job; buttered parchment does it without the pork flavour.
The sauce cross-referencesNo. 409 is Ranhofer's bechamel and No. 413 his half-glaze, that is, demi-glace. Finished with Madeira, this is essentially a Madeira sauce; a good reduced brown sauce with a splash of dry Madeira off the heat gives the same effect.
Yield and useTwelve caps, intended as a garnish ranged around a roast or saddle; the recipe gives no number of servings. Served on their own with the demi-glace they would do as a first course.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years running the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, and its long "Garnishings" chapter reflects a style of service in which the platter mattered as much as the joint: a roast came to table ringed with small, individually composed items, each numbered so the chef could assemble a menu by reference. Stuffed mushroom caps of this kind -- caps hollowed, the trimmings chopped into a duxelles with onion, garlic and parsley, then bound and gratinated -- descend directly from the French classical repertoire Ranhofer trained in, and the technique is essentially unchanged today. The attribution "a la Delsart" is of the sort Ranhofer scattered freely through the book, honouring patrons, colleagues and public figures; it is often suggested that such names point to the French elocution teacher François Delsarte, whose system was fashionable in New York in this period, but the book itself gives no explanation and the connection is not documented.