One of the very best and most useful of store sauces is good home-made mushroom catsup, which, if really well prepared, imparts an agreeable flavour to any soup or sauce with which it is mingled, and at the same time heightens the colour without imparting the “bitter sweetness” which the burnt sugar used as “browning” in clumsy cookery so often does. The catsup ought, in fact, to be rather the pure essence of mushrooms, made with so much salt and spice only as are required to preserve it for a year or longer, than the compound of mushroom-juice, anchovies, shalots, allspice, and other condiments of which it is commonly composed, especially for sale.
Directions to be observed in making and for keeping the catsup.—Let the mushrooms be collected when the weather is dry, for if gathered during, or immediately after rain, the catsup made with them will not keep well.
Cut off the stalk-ends to which the earth adheres, before the mushrooms are broken up, and throw them aside, as they should never be used for the catsup. Reject also such of the flaps as are worm-eaten or decayed. Those which are too stale for use may be detected by the smell, which is very offensive.
When the mushroom first opens, the underside is of a fine pale salmon colour; this changes soon to a sort of ashy-brown, which deepens almost to black as the mushroom passes from its maturity to a state of decay. As it yields a greater abundance of juice when it is fully ripe, it is usually taken in that state for these sauces; but catsup of fine and delicate flavour, though somewhat pale in colour, can be made even of mushroom-buttons if they be sliced up small and turned often in the liquid which will be speedily drawn from them by the application of salt; a rather smaller proportion of which should be mingled with them than is directed for the following receipt.
Every thing used in preparing the catsup should be delicately clean and very dry. The bottles in which it is stored, after being dried in the usual way, should be laid into a cool oven for an hour or two before they are filled, to ensure their being free from the slightest degree of moisture, but they must be quite cold before the catsup is poured into them. If the corks be sealed so as to exclude the air effectually, or if well-cleansed bits of bladder first dried, and then rendered flexible with a little spirit of any kind (spirits of wine is convenient for such purposes), be tied closely over them, and the bottles can be kept in a cool place free from damp, the catsup will remain good for a long time.
MUSHROOM CATSUP.
Receipt:—Break up small into a deep earthen pan, two gallons of large ripe mushroom-flaps, and strew amongst them three quarters of a pound of salt, reserving the larger portion of it for the top. Let them remain two days, and stir them gently with a wooden spoon often during the time; then turn them into a large stewpan or enamelled saucepan, heat them slowly, and simmer them for fifteen or twenty minutes. Strain the liquor closely from them without pressure; strain and measure it; put it into a very clean stewpan, and boil it quickly until it is reduced nearly half. For every quart allow half an ounce of black peppercorns and a drachm of mace; or, instead of the pepper, a quarter of a teaspoonful (ten grains) of good cayenne; pour the catsup into a clean jug or jar, lay a folded cloth over it, and keep it in a cool place until the following day; pour it gently from the sediment, put into small bottles, cork them well, and rosin them down. A teaspoonful of salad oil may be poured into each bottle before it is corked, the better to exclude the air from the catsup.
Mushrooms, 2 gallons; salt, 3/4 lb.; to macerate three or four days. To each quart of liquor, 1/2 oz. black pepper, or quarter of a teaspoonful of cayenne; and 1 drachm of mace: to be reduced nearly half.
Obs. 1.—Catsup made thus will not be too salt, nor will the flavour of the mushrooms be overpowered by that of the spices; of which a larger quantity, and a greater variety, can be used at will.
We can, however, answer for the excellence of the present receipt from long experience of it. When the catsup is boiled down quite early in the day, it may be bottled the same night: it is necessary only, that it should perfectly cold before this is done.