Braised Artichokes.
Wash and peel a pound of artichokes and put them aside in a basin of cold water. Melt a walnut of butter in the Chafing Dish; add the artichokes after drying them well. Let them brown well in the butter; add pepper and salt and stir them frequently, letting them simmer for twelve minutes.
Spinach Purée.
Have your spinach thoroughly well washed in several waters till it is perfectly clean. Boil a pint of water in the Chafing Dish, salt it and put in the spinach. Boil it for ten minutes. Take out the spinach and strain it. Pour cold water over it to take away the bitter taste; strain again. Put a walnut of butter in the dish, add the spinach and half a cupful of milk. Mix up well with a wooden spoon. Heat for five minutes.
There are about twenty-five different kinds of edible mushrooms. The popular test of peeling is unreliable, because some poisonous mushrooms peel easily, and some harmless kinds do not. An authority on mushrooms (Mr. E. Kay Robinson) says: “If a mushroom of any kind which has been gathered from an open space is brittle and compact in texture, and not brightly coloured, nor peculiar in taste or unpleasant in smell, and neither exudes a milky juice when bruised, nor changes colour when exposed to the air, you may eat it without fear.”
Consequently, when you go mushroom-gathering you must bear in mind nearly as many things as when you address your ball on the tee. I always buy my mushrooms, and go to a good shop; then, I think, you are fairly safe.
The onion is a sure poison detector. Put an onion in a dish of mushrooms. If it does not change colour the mushrooms are all right. If it blushes black with shame at its contiguity, they are all wrong. A silver spoon acts in the same way and gets black in contact with toadstools or the like. Verily, evil communications corrupt good manners—even in onions.
Stewed Mushrooms.
Flood the Chafing Dish with really good olive oil. Put in a teaspoonful of Paprika and a pinch of salt. Drop in the mushrooms, after having stalked and peeled them, black part uppermost. Cover up, and listen to the appetising sizzling for seven minutes. They should then be done to a turn.
Mushrooms used to be dried, powdered, and used as a flavouring in the eighteenth century. Cook-books of that period speak of the condiment as “Cook’s Snuff.” The great and justly esteemed Grimod de la Reynière said that it ought always to be on the dining-table together with pepper and salt. Here is a hint for the modern purveyors of table delicacies.