Modern cookery for private families

lightly browned. Next pour in, by slow degrees, half a pint of gravy or of good beef-broth; and when the mushrooms have stewed softly in this for a couple of minutes, throw in a little salt, and a squeeze of lemon-juice, and pour them on to a crust, cut about an inch and a quarter thick, from the under part of a moderate-sized loaf, and fried in good butter a light brown, after having been first slightly hollowed in the inside. New milk, or thin cream, may be used with very good effect instead of the gravy; but a few strips of lemon-rind, and a small portion of nutmeg and mushroom-catsup should then be added to the sauce. The bread may be buttered and grilled over a gentle fire instead of being fried, and is better so. Small mushrooms, 4 to 5 half pints; butter, 3 to 4 oz.; mace, mixed with a little cayenne, 1/4 teaspoonful: stewed softly 10 to 15 minutes. Flour, 1 small dessertspoonful: 3 to 5 minutes. Gravy or broth, 1/2 pint: 2 minutes. Little salt and lemon-juice. TRUFFLES AND THEIR USES. The truffle, or underground mushroom, as it has sometimes been called, is held in almost extravagant estimation by epicures,[109] and enters largely into what may be termed first-class cookery, both in England and abroad; though it is much less generally known and used here than in France, Germany, and other parts of the Continent, where it is far more abundant, and of very superior quality. Footnote 109: It has been named by a celebrated gastronomer of past days, “_Le diamant de la cuisine_.” As it is in constant demand for luxuriously-served tables, and has hitherto, we believe, baffled all attempts to increase it by cultivation, it bears usually a high price in the English market,[110] and is seldom to be had cheap in any; but although too costly for common consumption, where the expenditure is regulated by rational economy, it may at times be made to supply, at a reasonable expense, some excellent store-preparations for the breakfast and luncheon-table; as a small portion will