Choose a dozen good fresh mushrooms, take off the stalks and put the tops into a saucepan with a little butter. See that they lie bottom upwards. Then cut up and mix together half the stalks of the mushrooms, a little bread crumb soaked in gravy, the merest scrap of garlic and a little chopped parsley. Put this into a separate saucepan and add to it two eggs, half a gill of cream, salt, and two tablespoonsful of grated Parmesan. Mix well so as to get a smooth paste and fill in the cavities of the mushrooms with it. Then add a little more butter, strew some bread crumbs over each mushroom, and cook in the oven for ten to fifteen minutes.
No. 173. Verdure miste (Macedoine of Vegetables)
Ingredients: Cauliflower, carrots, celery, spinach, butter, cream, pepper, Parmesan.
Boil some carrots, cauliflower, spinach, and celery (all cut up) in water. Then put them in layers in a buttered china mould, and between each layer add a little cream, pepper, and a little grated Parmesan and Cheddar. Fill the mould in this manner, and put it in the oven for half an hour, so that the vegetables may cook without adhering to the mould. Turn out and serve.
No. 174. Patate alla crema (Potatoes in cream)
Ingredients: Potatoes, butter, Parmesan, white stock, cream, pepper, salt.
Boil two pounds of potatoes in salted water for a quarter of an hour, peel and cut them into slices about the size of a penny, then arrange them in layers in a very deep fireproof dish (with a lid), and on each layer pour a little melted butter, a little good white stock and a dust of grated Parmesan. Reduce a pint and a half of cream to half its quantity, add a little pepper, and pour it over the potatoes. Put the dish in the oven for twenty minutes. Serve as hot as possible.