Cook a peeled white onion in the pot with your mushrooms. If it turn black, throw all away, and be properly thankful for your escape. It is also deemed safe to reject the mess of wild pottage, if in stirring them, your silver spoon should blacken. But I certainly once knew a lady who did not discover until hers were eaten and partially digested, that the silver had come to grief in the discharge of duty. It was very dark, and required a deal of rubbing to restore cleanliness and polish; but the poison—if death were, indeed, in the pot—was slow in its effects, since she lived many years after the experiment. It is as well perhaps, though, not to repeat it too often.
To re-capitulate.—The eatable ones are round when they first show their heads in a critical world. As they grow, the lower part unfolds a lining of salmon fringe, while the stalk and top are dirty white. When the mushroom is more than twenty-four hours old, or within a few hours after it is gathered, the salmon changes to brown. The skin can also be more easily peeled from the edges than in the spurious kinds.
Stewed Mushrooms.
Choose button mushrooms of uniform size. Wipe clean and white with a wet flannel cloth, and cut off the stalks. Put into a porcelain saucepan, cover with cold water, and stew very gently fifteen minutes. Salt to taste; add a tablespoonful of butter, divided into bits and rolled in flour. Boil three or four minutes; stir in three or four tablespoonfuls of cream whipped up with an egg, stir two minutes without letting it boil, and serve.
Or,
Rub them white, stew in water ten minutes; strain partially, and cover with as much warm milk as you have poured off water; stew five minutes in this; salt and pepper, and add some veal or chicken gravy, or drawn butter. Thicken with a little flour wet in cold milk, and a beaten egg.
Baked Mushrooms.
Take fresh ones,—the size is not very important,—cut off nearly all the stalks, and wipe off the skin with wet flannel. Arrange neatly in a pie-dish, pepper and salt, sprinkle a little mace among them, and lay a bit of butter upon each. Bake about half an hour, basting now and then with butter and water, that they may not be too dry. Serve in the dish in which they were baked, with maître d’hôtel sauce poured over them.
Broiled Mushrooms.
Peel the finest and freshest you can get, score the under side, and cut the stems close. Put into a deep dish and anoint well, once and again, with melted butter. Salt and pepper, and let them lie in the butter an hour and a half. Then broil over a clear, hot fire, using an oyster-gridiron, and turning it over as one side browns. Serve hot, well buttered, pepper and salt, and squeeze a few drops of lemon-juice upon each.