Mrs. Roundell's Practical cookery book

fresh ketchup made of their stalks and peelings and carefully strained through fine muslin. Add a coffeecupful of milk, a pinch of salt, and a pinch of pepper. Bring to the boil for two minutes only. Simmer for fifteen minutes. Remove the pan from the fire and let the Mushrooms cool in the ketchup. Then drain and wipe them, pound and pass them through the sieve, using half an ounce of butter to assist the operation. Take half a pint of melted butter made with broth, add the Mushroom ketchup, stir over the fire till the sauce coats the spoon, and then add the puree. Set in the bain-marie till wanted. This Puree makes an excellent sauce or garnish. Or it can be served as a savoury in little hollow croutes of puff paste. For this dilute the Mushroom puree with very strongly reduced brown sauce. Cap each croute with a whole Mushroom set hollow downwards. Heat the croutes till very hot in the oven, and serve dished on a napkin. Or add half a gill or so of whipped cream to the Mushroom puree, pour the mixture into small darioles, set these over ice, and serve as Mushroom Creams ice-cold, garnished with cress or watercress. Plainly Baked Mushrooms. — Butter as many squares of toast (if possible use brown bread) as there are Mushrooms. Put the Mushrooms on the toasts, and set them, stalk upwards, on a well-buttered tin. Dust the Mushrooms freely with salt and pepper, and put a morsel of butter in the hollow of each. Cover the Mushrooms with another tin, and bake in the oven from eight to ten minutes. If a fire-proof dish is used for the Mushrooms they can be served in it without losing either flavour or heat. The tin which covers them during baking is easily removed. “ Wyvern’s” Baked Mushrooms. — Mushrooms au Gratin. — Put into a saucepan an ounce of butter, and stir into it half an ounce of flour. When mixed, add half a pint of made gravy. Stir well, and throw in . the chopped stalks and peelings of the Mushrooms, a dessertspoonful of minced parsley, a teaspoonful of minced onion, a saltspoonful of salt, and a dusting of pepper. Simmer the sauce until it is thick and rich, add a spoonful of cream, and strain it. Now butter a fire-proof dish liberally, place the Mushrooms upon it head downwards, fill their hollow parts with the thick sauce, and set the dish in a brisk oven for ten minutes. As soon as the Mushrooms 35° MUSHROOMS flatten themselves, as it were, they are done. Serve in same dish, and hand dry toast. Grilled Mushrooms.— Put the Mushrooms stalk downwards on the gridiron, over a clear, but not a fierce, fire. After three minutes turn them, and then put a morsel of butter in the centre of each, so that it will run from the stalk into the gills whilst the top sides are cooking. The Mushrooms should be cooked in ten minutes, as they ought not to be overdone. Place them in a hot dish, stalk-side upwards, before a bright fire, and put another little piece of butter in the centre of each. While this is melting, dust freely with pepper and salt, and serve the Mushrooms at once.