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Cepes Provencale
Open a pint can of cepes, take them up and drain on a cloth, then cut in quarters. Heat a tablespoon oil in frying pan, add the cepes with a finely chopped onion, season with half teaspoon salt, three saltspoons pepper and gently brown for five minutes, tossing meanwhile. Finely chop a sound bean garlic, two branches parsley and one branch chervil and add to the cepes, toss well while heating for one minute, squeeze in juice of quarter of a lemon, toss lightly and use as required.
A garnish rather than a dish in its own right — the last line, "use as required," assumes it is going alongside a steak, into an omelette, or under roast poultry. Nearly everything here hinges on getting the mushrooms dry before they hit the pan.
- CepesCèpes are porcini, Boletus edulis. Canned ones are now hard to find outside Italian and French grocers; 1 to 1.5 oz dried porcini soaked in hot water, or about 1 lb fresh, stands in for a drained pint can. If you use the soaking liquid elsewhere, strain out the grit.
- Drain on a clothThis is the instruction that matters. Canned or rehydrated mushrooms carry a great deal of water, and wet cèpes steam grey instead of browning. Press them between towels until they squeak against the cloth.
- SaltspoonsA saltspoon is usually reckoned a quarter teaspoon, so three comes to about three-quarters of a teaspoon of pepper for a pint of mushrooms. That is a good deal more pepper than most cooks would use today; a quarter teaspoon is closer to modern expectations.
- Bean garlicAlmost certainly a literal rendering of the French gousse d'ail: it means a single clove, not a head. "Sound" means firm and unsprouted.
- ChervilRarely stocked fresh and it wilts within days. A pinch of tarragon plus extra parsley gives the same faintly anise lift; dried chervil contributes almost nothing.
- The one-minute ruleGarlic and herbs go in only at the end and heat for a minute. Longer and the garlic scorches, which is why they are not sweated with the onion.
- OilA tablespoon is scant for this quantity. Two to three tablespoons of olive oil, in a wide pan over fairly high heat so the mushrooms sear rather than crowd and stew.
- YieldRoughly enough to garnish four plates, or to fill two omelettes; the recipe itself gives no yield. Add the lemon at the very end, as directed, and serve at once — it does not hold well.
"Provençale" in a book of this vintage is a shorthand promise of garlic, olive oil, and parsley, the trio that French classical cookery assigned to the south. Cèpes were a genuinely seasonal luxury, gathered in oak and chestnut woods in autumn, and the pint can here is a reminder of how far cooks of the period relied on tinned imports to put a French mushroom on the table out of season. The closing "use as required" suggests such a preparation was understood less as a vegetable course than as a flourish — a small savoury garnish to dress up a plainer roast or an omelette.