Another very excellent form of preserved mushrooms of which I cannot speak too highly, is what is known as black Leicestershire mushrooms, preserved in gravy. These are quite different from the ones usually sold in tins. They are round and flat in shape, and are much more like the ordinary mushrooms that we are accustomed to gather in the country, being white on one side and black on the other. The way to use them is to make the tin hot in boiling water, and then add the contents to either a well cooked steak or chop, taking care that the red gravy that runs out of the steak or chop is added to the gravy in the mushrooms. It is an improvement if you have some good thick gravy, to add a little of it to the gravy in the tin. One of these tins very greatly improves the flavour of a dish of hash or stewed steak. I would strongly recommend you to try the experiment of using one of these tins the next time you have a chop or steak. They can be served just as they are, after being made hot, in a sauce tureen, and will be found far superior to any mushroom sauce generally met with, even when made from freshly gathered mushrooms. The cost of a small tin of these excellent mushrooms preserved in gravy is about sevenpence.
We will now consider tomatoes in tins. Fresh tomatoes are now preserved whole, and will often be found very useful. Suppose, for instance, as we mentioned in our first article, that we are taken by surprise in a country house far away from all shops, and we want a delicious little entrée in a hurry. We will suppose the store cupboard to contain a tin of tomatoes preserved whole, and also a tin of mushrooms. The dish we are going to send to table is called tomatoes au gratin. We will suppose the larder to contain a piece of cold boiled bacon, but raw bacon would serve our purpose equally well. Take the piece of cold boiled bacon, and with a blunt knife scrape off about two or three tablespoonfuls of fat. Chop up very finely a tin of mushrooms with a piece of onion, lemon peel and parsley, exactly as if we were making a sole au gratin. Add a small saltspoonful of dried thyme. If the thyme is fresh, less than half that quantity will be ample. Fry all these ingredients in a frying-pan with the fat bacon, and then add sufficient bread-crumbs to make the whole into the consistency of a pudding. Now take the tomatoes very carefully out of the tin without breaking them, and I would warn you that they require very delicate handling. Give the tomatoes a gentle squeeze so as to get rid of any of the pips inside. Then with a teaspoon carefully fill the tomatoes with the mixture we have just made. The more mixture you can get into each tomato the better. Next pour a very little salad oil into a tin—oiled butter will do—and place the tomatoes one by one on the tin without breaking them, and bake them in the oven. When they are hot through, they may be served. In taking them out of the tin and placing them on the dish, use a slice similar to that for taking out fried eggs.
The only difficulty I know of in making this delicious dish is to avoid breaking the tomatoes, which are more liable to give way when they are hot than when they were first taken out of the tin. Shake a few bread-raspings over the top of each tomato before serving—that is, cover the top of the mushroom mixture with the bread raspings to make it a nice brown, but do not shake the bread raspings over the tomato itself. If the tomatoes are placed in a silver dish and surrounded with a little bright-green fried parsley, it has a very pretty appearance. If you have some good brown gravy in the house, the tomatoes can be served in a little gravy; only do not pour the gravy over the tomatoes, as it would utterly spoil their appearance, but pour a little gravy into the dish first, and then place the stuffed tomatoes carefully in it. The gravy should be rich, thick, and of a good brown colour; otherwise the tomatoes au gratin are best served as they are.
Tomatoes preserved whole will be found useful to ornament a large variety of dishes, such as tête de veau en tortue, poulet à la Marengo, etc. For instance, a simple dish, but very bright-looking, can be made as follows:—From the remains of some cold boiled potatoes make some ordinary mashed potatoes; and if you live in the country, where cream is cheap, remember a very little boiling cream added is a very great improvement, both in appearance and flavour. Mashed potatoes, to be really good, should be rubbed through a wire sieve. Pile the mashed potatoes up in the middle of a vegetable dish, and place round the outside alternately a mutton cutlet and a whole tomato. The cutlets can be cooked perfectly plain—that is, simply grilled on the gridiron like a mutton chop—or they can be fried after being egged and bread-crumbed. The tomatoes simply want being made hot by being placed on a greasy tin and warmed up in the oven. Place the cutlets round the mashed potatoes, first leaving room for the tomatoes between each. Then take out the tomatoes with a slice, and make a bed in the mashed potatoes, in which they can quietly repose; otherwise they are apt to smash and run, and make the dish look untidy.
We will next consider the best way of utilising the various vegetables that can be obtained in tins, such as asparagus, green peas, French beans, and last, but not least, macédoines.
First with regard to asparagus. Of all the vegetables preserved in tins I think this is the best. It requires no preparation whatever. Make a piece of toast, and place it at the bottom of a vegetable dish; then make the asparagus hot in the tin, and when the water in which the tin has been placed has boiled for some four or five minutes the tin can be taken out and opened. In opening a tin of asparagus, cut the tin right round the edge, so that the sticks of asparagus can be taken out without breaking them, and take out any tops that may be left in the tin, and add them to the rest. Strain off the liquid, and place the asparagus on the toast, the white part resting on the edge of the dish. The asparagus should therefore be divided into two parts, so that the green parts meet on the toast and half the white sticks rest on one end of the vegetable dish and half on the other. A little ordinary melted butter or white sauce is generally served with them. For my part, I prefer the asparagus quite plain.
Tinned asparagus differs in one respect from ordinary asparagus, inasmuch as you can nearly eat the whole of it. Asparagus can be eaten cold as a salad, and a very delicious salad it makes. Open a tin just as it is, strain off the contents, dry the asparagus on a cloth, and place it as I have described before on a dish, but without any toast. Now make a little sauce to pour over the tips as follows:—Take, say, a couple of ounces of butter, and dissolve it in the oven in a teacup till it runs to oil. Now take it out, and add to it three brimming teaspoonfuls of freshly-made mustard, a dessertspoonful of vinegar, and a saltspoonful of pepper and another of salt. Stir this up with the oiled butter. As the butter begins to get cold the sauce commences to get thick, and as soon as it has got into that state in which it resembles custard, pour it over the asparagus, of course leaving the ends of each stick free from the sauce, as it is now customary to eat asparagus with the fingers. This sauce, to be good, requires real butter, which is a substance now rarely met with, even at respectable grocers, the adulteration of butter with fat being almost universal—this universal adulteration being the chief cause of the depression of trade throughout the country. The salad should not be served till the sauce is quite cold and sticks to the asparagus.
Green peas are now to be had preserved in tins, not only very good but very cheap. Good preserved peas should be small and of a light green. When the peas are large and high coloured, they are inferior. The fact is that the former are young and the latter old. Preserved peas are best served in a course by themselves, though, of course, they can be handed round with ordinary joints. The art of sending preserved peas to table is to make them look and taste as much as possible like green peas freshly gathered. For this purpose you should act as follows:—Make the peas hot in the tin and take, say, a dozen fresh mint leaves and scald them in the water in which the tin is being made hot. Next take these hot mint leaves and put them in a vegetable dish. Open the tin of peas, strain off the liquor, and pour the peas on to the mint leaves. Now add a small saltspoonful of powdered sugar, half a saltspoonful of salt, and a small pat of butter as big as a five-shilling piece. Toss the peas for a minute or so lightly together, so that the butter is dissolved and the sugar and salt melted, and the fresh mint leaves brought to the surface. Now send the dish to table. The fresh mint leaves help to convey the idea that the peas are fresh. In everything we eat and drink imagination goes a long way. Who, for instance, would care to drink port wine out of the spout of a teapot, even if the teapot were solid silver?
I might here mention in passing that a small sixpenny tin of peas will be found very useful in ornamenting a boiled leg of mutton. If you want to make a boiled leg of mutton look really nice, proceed as follows:—Of course you have boiled turnips and carrots with it. Boil the turnips whole, and when they are tender take them out of the water and cut each turnip in half and scoop out the centre, so as to make it like a cup. Now take the outside part of the carrot, which is a brighter red than the inside part, and chop it up into small pieces. Place the leg of mutton in the centre of the dish, and pour over it either some of the water in which it is boiled or some thick caper sauce. Now fill up these cups made out of the scooped turnips cut in half with a tablespoonful of green peas and a tablespoonful of chopped-up carrot alternately. It is a very simple garnish, and gives but little trouble; but what a difference it makes in the appearance!
We will next take French beans, or, as they are properly called, haricots verts. I think these deserve to be served in a course by themselves, even more than peas. If they are served with a joint they must simply be made hot in a tin, then drained and allowed to dry, and handed round just as they are. French beans go best with a haunch of venison or roast mutton. If, however, you serve the beans as a course by themselves, you must, after making them hot and draining off the liquid, add a couple of tablespoonfuls of good white sauce, that is béchamel sauce, or if you have none, add to a tin of beans about enough fresh butter to fill a dessertspoon; add also about a saltspoonful of finely chopped fresh parsley, a little pepper and salt, and about a teaspoonful or rather more of lemon-juice, as well as a little powdered sugar. The beans should be tossed lightly together until the butter is dissolved, and then served.