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Stewed Mushrooms
(Funghi in umido) For a stew the mushrooms ought to be below middle-size. Clean, wash and cut as for the preceding. Put a saucepan on the fire with olive oil, one or two cloves of oil and some mint leaves.
When the oil begins to splutter, put the mushrooms in without dipping in flour, season with salt and pepper and when they are half cooked pour in some tomato sauce. Be sparing however, with the seasoning, in order that the mushrooms do not absorb it too much and so lose some of their own delicate flavor. 99
A plain Tuscan braise that lives or dies on restraint: the tomato and garlic are there to frame the mushrooms, not to cover them. Two small translation slips in the original are worth clearing up before you start.
- "One or two cloves of oil"A mistranslation or typesetting slip for garlic (aglio). Use one or two whole peeled cloves, lightly crushed, and lift them out before serving if you want only the perfume.
- "Cut as for the preceding"The instruction refers back to the preceding mushroom recipe, which is not reproduced here. For a stew, halve or quarter small caps and cut the stems into rounds; keep the pieces chunky so they hold shape.
- Which mushroomsThe text says only "mushrooms"; in a Tuscan context porcini are the likely intention. Cremini, or a mix of cremini and fresh shiitake, behaves closest; if you use dried porcini, soak them and add a little of the strained liquor with the tomato.
- Below middle-sizeSmall mushrooms are firmer and less watery. Larger ones shed a great deal of liquid, which will dilute the sauce, so cook them uncovered until the pan is dry again before adding tomato.
- "When the oil begins to splutter"Medium heat, oil shimmering and the garlic just fragrant. If the garlic browns it turns bitter and will dominate the dish, which is exactly what the last sentence warns against.
- No flourThe instruction "without dipping in flour" distinguishes this from the fried version. Nothing thickens the sauce here; it reduces to a light coating on its own.
- Tomato sauceA period salsa di pomodoro is a simple sieved tomato cooked with a few aromatics and herbs. A few tablespoons of passata, or crushed canned tomato, is the modern equivalent; the mushrooms should be glossed with it, not swimming.
- Timing and yieldReckon 10 to 15 minutes in total, the tomato going in at the halfway point and cooking down for the rest. A pound of mushrooms serves three or four as a side dish.
- Mint, not parsleyIn Tuscan mushroom cookery the herb is often nepitella, wild calamint, which may well be what lies behind "mint" here. Fresh spearmint used sparingly is a workable substitute; some cooks add a little thyme alongside it.
This is from Maria Gentile's The Italian Cook Book (1919), one of the earliest English-language collections to bring Italian home cooking to American readers, and its material is often said to draw on Pellegrino Artusi's La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiar bene, first published in 1891, the volume most often credited with giving a unified Italian cuisine a written form. The pairing of mushrooms with mint rather than parsley is associated with central Italy, where nepitella grows in the same oak and chestnut woods where porcini are gathered; the herb is traditionally said to be picked at the same time as the mushrooms themselves. The closing caution about not letting seasoning overwhelm the mushroom reflects a period when a good porcino was worth deferring to rather than dressing up....(the numeral 99 at the end is the recipe number, not part of the method.)