Important: Safety Warning

This page offers rules for telling edible mushrooms from poisonous ones. No such rules are reliable, and these identifications predate modern mycology. Deadly species closely resemble edible ones, and mistakes are regularly fatal. Never eat a wild mushroom on the strength of this text.

This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.

No. 696

Oronges a la Livournaise Garnishing

Garniture d'Oronges a la Livournaise

Have sixteen medium sized oronges, suppress the stalks, empty out half of the inside of the oronges with a vegetable spoon and chop up the stalks and insides just removed; fry this in two ounces of butter until all the moisture is evaporated and it is perfectly dry, then add the juice of one lemon and three tablespoonfuls of mushroom catsup. Let this now get cold, and then add to it half its quantity of chicken forcemeat (No. 89), a tablespoonful of chopped parsley and two tablespoonfuls of tomato sauce (No. 549); season well. Mix together and fill the oronges with this preparation, giving them a dome-shape. Lay them on a dish garnished with a few bardes of fat pork and sprinkle over some bread raspings and grated parmesan cheese; pour over a little good sweet oil, a little broth, and place it in a slack oven for twenty to thirty minutes. A half-glaze sauce (No. 413), accompanies this garnishing.

← No. 695 Olives Plain or Stuffed Garnishing Garnishings No. 697 Oyster Garnishing a la Tykopf →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer files this among garnishings, so it is meant to ring a roast or a platter rather than stand alone; the method works perfectly well as a first course of stuffed mushrooms. The cross-references (Nos. 89, 549, 413) are to forcemeat, tomato sauce and half-glaze elsewhere in The Epicurean.

What an oronge isThe oronge is Amanita caesarea, the Caesar's mushroom, orange-capped and prized in France and Italy. It is not sold commercially in the United States and its lookalikes in the genus include lethal species, so do not attempt to gather it; use sixteen medium cultivated mushrooms with caps broad enough to hollow, or large cremini.
Suppress the stalks"Suppress" is Ranhofer's habitual Gallicism for remove. The stalks and scooped-out flesh become the duxelles-style base, so nothing is wasted.
Dry the filling properlyThis is the hinge. Mushrooms are mostly water, and if the chopped trimmings are not fried until the pan is audibly dry, the finished caps will sit in grey liquid and the forcemeat will not hold its dome. Expect eight to twelve minutes over a brisk heat.
Chicken forcemeatNo. 89 is Ranhofer's chicken forcemeat, cross-referenced from the forcemeat chapter. A modern equivalent is raw chicken breast pulsed smooth in a food processor with a little cream and salt. "Half its quantity" means half as much forcemeat as there is cooled mushroom mixture.
Mushroom catsupNineteenth-century mushroom catsup is a thin, dark, salty mushroom-and-spice liquor with no tomato or sugar in it. Mushroom ketchup is still made in Britain; a mixture of soy sauce and Worcestershire is the nearest common substitute, used sparingly.
Bardes of fat pork and sweet oilBardes are thin sheets of back fat laid on the dish to keep the mushrooms from catching and to baste them. Sliced fatty pancetta or salt pork does the same work. "Sweet oil" is simply olive oil, sweet as opposed to rancid.
Bread raspingsRaspings are the crust of a stale loaf grated fine, drier and sandier than fresh crumbs. Rusk crumbs or panko are close enough.
A slack ovenSlack is the cool end of the range; period usage is not precise, but somewhere in the region of 275 to 325F. Twenty to thirty minutes at that heat cooks the chicken forcemeat through without collapsing the caps; check that the filling reaches 165F, since it contains raw poultry.
The accompanying sauceNo. 413, half-glaze, is demi-glace: reduced brown sauce and stock. A few tablespoons spooned around, not over, keeps the parmesan crust intact.
YieldSixteen caps would ring a large roast, or could be plated as a first course for four.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its enormous chapter of garnishings shows how service worked in that kitchen: a roast or an entrée arrived encircled by small composed items, each with its own recipe number, to be assembled at the last moment. The name here points to Livorno, the Tuscan port the English called Leghorn, and the tomato, parmesan and olive oil are Ranhofer's shorthand for that Italian register rather than evidence of a specific Livornese dish. That he expected sixteen fresh oronges to be available says a good deal about Delmonico's suppliers; the Caesar's mushroom, being mycorrhizal, has largely resisted commercial cultivation, and even in Europe it is a market mushroom gathered by hand in late summer. The stuffing itself is a classic duxelles bound with chicken forcemeat, a combination that runs through French garnishing practice from Carême onward and survives, much simplified, in the stuffed mushroom of modern buffets.