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Fried Mushrooms
(Funghi fritti) Choose middle-sized mushrooms, which are also of the right ripeness: when they are too big they are too soft and if small they are too hard.
Scrape the stems, wash them carefully but do not keep in water, for then they would lose their pleasant odor. Then cut them in rather large slices and dip them in flour before putting in the frying pan. Olive oil is best for frying mushrooms and the seasoning is composed exclusively of salt and pepper to be applied when they are frying.
They can also be dipped in beaten eggs after being sprinkled with flour, but this is superfluous. 98
A three-line method that depends almost entirely on handling: dry mushrooms, hot oil, seasoning applied in the pan.
- The hinge: keep them dryWipe or rinse quickly and pat dry rather than soaking. Waterlogged mushrooms steam instead of frying, and the flour coating slides off in a paste.
- What "middle-sized" meansWhat "middle-sized" may suggest -- caps of roughly 2 inches across. The instruction is about moisture and texture: very large open caps are spongy and release water, button-stage caps stay squeaky. Cremini or a mix of cultivated caps work well; if wild mushrooms are used they should come from a reliable seller, not from a field.
- Slice thickness"rather large slices" suggests something around 1/3 inch, thick enough to hold together and brown without collapsing. Stems can be scraped and sliced lengthwise.
- Oil and heatOlive oil about 1/4 inch deep in a wide skillet, heated until a floured slice sizzles at once, roughly 350-375F. Fry in batches in a single layer; crowding drops the temperature and the mushrooms stew.
- FlourToss the slices in flour just before frying and shake off the excess. Flour left sitting on damp mushrooms turns gummy.
- TimingThree to four minutes a side, until the coating is set and golden. Colour is the main guide.
- Seasoning in the panSalting before frying draws out water; the original is right to season while they cook. Salt and pepper as the first side browns.
- The egg dipThe author dismisses it, and for good reason: egg gives a puffier, heavier crust that masks the mushroom. Skip it unless you want something closer to a fritter.
- YieldA pound of mushrooms serves three or four as a side dish. Serve immediately with lemon; they soften within minutes.
The Italian Cook Book (1919), compiled by Maria Gentile, draws heavily on Pellegrino Artusi's La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiar bene, the 1891 collection that did more than any other book to give Italy a shared bourgeois kitchen vocabulary — and Artusi's voice is audible here in the brisk aside that the egg wash is "superfluous." The insistence on middle-sized mushrooms of "the right ripeness" reflects a market culture in which mushrooms were gathered or bought loose and graded by eye; commercial cultivation of Agaricus appears to have been limited in Italy at this period, so a cook largely chose from whatever the season brought. The warning not to leave them in water recurs in Italian and French manuals of the nineteenth century, and it holds up: at least some of the aroma compounds cooks were protecting are water-soluble.