presidential china

From bloomacious.

mushrooms under glass

Mushrooms under glass were all the rage in the early 20th century. I first read about them in Mary McCarthy's novel The Group, in which a coterie of Vassar graduates trip through 1930s New York drinking cocktails called Clover Cup and Silver Fizz. Intrigued, I found them again (via google) in a 1918 novel by Mary Roberts Rinehart, memorably titled 'Twenty-Three and a Half Hours' Leave'. (The frontispiece of this novel is an image captioned with the words: 'In the elevator she said out of a clear sky: "You'll have to take that raincoat off, of course".') In Rinehart's book, a general eats his mushrooms under glass with broiled squab at "the best restaurant in the city".

The basic recipe is a circle of toasted bread topped with mushrooms, butter and cream. This assemblage is covered by a glass dish and cooked slowly in a low oven. 'How to Cook Vegetables' (1909), by the uncannily named Olive Green, offers four Mushrooms Under Glass recipes: with parsley butter and a little cream; with stems fried in salt, pepper and nutmeg; with nothing but fresh uncooked mushrooms; and with pre-sautéed mushrooms. 'The French Chef in Private American Families' (1922), by Xavier Raskin, recommends mushrooms of the Campestris variety, and suggests one large mushroom cap upended on the toast and stuffed with its stem, butter and cream.

I don't know when mushrooms under glass fell out of fashion. Maybe it had something to do with being able to reproduce a similar effect with aluminium foil, or even in a microwave. But the theatrical whimsy of the dish appealed to me, and I knew where I could buy some cheap glass butter dish covers.



I updated the recipe with goat cheese rather than cream and mixed thyme and lemon in with the butter. Make sure you use thick-cut bakery or homemade bread for the crouton base: thin, spongy supermarket bread won't hold up. You need to be very careful when cooking with glass because abrupt changes in temperature can cause it to shatter. Don't preheat your oven, and don't place the dishes too close to the heating element. When you remove the glass covers from the dish, don't place them on anything too hot or too cold.

The result is something like serving your guests very, very good mushrooms on toast. The mushroom flavour intensifies with the slow cooking, but the mushrooms remain shapely and firm. This means that very ordinary button or white mushrooms will work perfectly: the long cooking time gives their flavour a chance to shine. The herb butter and mushroom juices keep the bread moist in the oven, so it still tastes just-toasted when you bring it to the table. The best part is removing the glass cover in front of your guests: the aroma of mushrooms, previously trapped under the dish, rises suddenly with the steam. It's like an earthy, rich terrarium of yum.

An ebay search for bell jars, glass cloches and glass butter dish covers shows how expensive these things can be. These garden cloches from Smith & Hawkin would be dramatic piled high with mushrooms. Keep an eye out for glass covers in thrift stores - I bought mine at a local antique store for $2 each. Xavier Raskin offers this hint for those dealing with larger Private American Families: "If more convenient use one large bell oven glass, arranging all the mushrooms as above under the one bell glass."



Mushrooms Under Glass

Serves 4

12 medium-sized button/white mushrooms
4 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
1 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 tsp fresh thyme leaves
salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 thick slices of bread
40g / 1.5oz firm goat cheese

Remove the stalks from the mushrooms. Chop stalks finely.

Using a fork, mash the thyme leaves, lemon juice and a little salt and pepper into the softened butter.

Cut out rounds of bread to the size of your glass cover. Toast bread. Spread one side with herb butter and place the bread, buttered side down, on a baking dish or plate. Spread more butter on top of the bread rounds. By this time you should have used about 3/4 of the butter.

Mix the chopped mushroom stalks in with the remainder of the butter, and then stuff each mushroom cap with these buttery stalks. Arrange 3 caps on each piece of toast. Crumble goat cheese over the mushrooms. Add salt and pepper generously.

Place glass covers over each round. Place the baking dishes/plates in the oven. Set the temperature to 200°F/100°C (do not pre-heat oven). Cook for 40 minutes. Serve immediately, removing glass covers at the table.

indianerkrapfen

These "Indian" cupcakes were invented as a marketing ploy in 19th century Vienna. A Hungarian theatre impresario, disappointed that his Indian magician (who bore the highly un-Indian name of Kutom Bulchia) wasn't a huge success, had his chef create a speciality pastry to sell at intermission. The cakes - a light sponge sandwich of cream and apricot glaze, coated in bittersweet chocolate - outsold the magician.

Indianerkrapfen are supposed to be perfectly round, and speciality molds are available in Austria. The best readily available alternative is a Danish cast iron pancake/dumpling (aebleskiver) pan - mine was $8.99 from Amazon US (Amazon UK don't seem to stock them). Otherwise, Rick Rodgers - whose recipe I used - suggests muffin tins three-quarters full.

The cakes are fiddly to make (two of us worked on these all afternoon), but they reward the cook by looking as if they belong in a museum dedicated to the heyday of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The taste is rich but also clean: the chocolate, the sweet cream, the subtle hint of apricot and the light but firm sponge all register as distinct flavours.



The batter in the recipe below is perfect for 14 cakes, or 2 bakes of the 7-hole aebleskiver pan. After assembling our first Indianerkrapfen using the instructions below, we decided we'd like them to be larger: our final result was a sandwich made of 2 cakes, rather than 1 cake cut through the middle. We paired up our cakes, and within each pair removed 1/8 of an inch from the bottom of one and 1/8 of an inch from the top of the other. They still aren't large, but they're less delicate this way - a better vehicle for the cream, with enough cut surface area to allow for a distinct taste of apricot.

We also cut the quantity of apricot glaze given in the original recipe and added more cream to the chocolate glaze, which needs to be runny enough to coat the cakes in a thin but convincing layer. You may like to play with the consistency of both glazes until you're satisfied.



Indianerkrapfen
from Kaffeehaus, by Rick Rodgers

Makes 7 or 14 cakes, depending on preference.

For the cakes:
3 tbsp plain/all-purpose flour
3 tbsp cornstarch
pinch of salt
3 large eggs, at room temperature
3 tbsp granulated sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

For the chocolate glaze:
3/4 cup heavy cream
4 ounces high quality bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate, finely chopped

For the apricot glaze:
1/2 cup apricot preserves
1 tbsp golden rum or water

For the whipped cream filling:
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
3 tbsp confectioners'/icing sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Position a rack in the centre of the oven and heat to 400F (200C). Lightly butter and flour the cups of an aebleskiver pan, tapping out the excess flour.

To make the cakes: sift the flour, cornstarch and salt together. Beat the egg whites in a medium bowl with a handheld electric mixer on high speed until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in the sugar and beat until the peaks are stiff and shiny.

Place the egg yolks and vanilla in a medium bowl. Sift about half of the flour mixture on top and beat with the mixer on medium speed, just until smooth. Add one fourth of the whites into the yolks and mix. Fold in the remaining whites, just until barely combined. Sift the remaining flour mixture on top, and fold in until smooth. Divide half of the batter evenly (about 3 tablespoons for each) among the cups of the aebleskiver pan, filling almost to the brim. Cover the remaining batter in the bowl with plastic wrap.

Bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the centre of the cakes comes out clean, 10 to 12 minutes. Cool in the pan for 3 minutes. Run the tip of a sharp knife around the cakes to release them, then remove from the cups. Cool completely on a wire rack. Rinse the pan (don't use soap) then dry, butter and flour and pan, and repeat with remaining batter.

To make the chocolate glaze: bring the 1/2 cup of heavy cream to a boil in a small saucepan over high heat. Remove from the heat and add the chocolate. Let stand for 3 minutes, then whisk until smooth. Let stand until slightly cooled, about 10 minutes.

To make the cream filling: in a chilled medium bowl, beat the cream, confectioners'/icing sugar, and vanilla until stiff peaks form. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

To make the apricot glaze: bring the preserves and rum or water to a boil in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring often. Cook, stirring, until the last drops that cling to the spoon are very sticky and reluctant to leave the spoon, 2 to 3 minutes. Strain through a wire sieve into a small bowl, pressing hard on the solids. The cakes must be assembled while the glaze is still warm.

To assemble the cupcakes: using a small serrated knife, slice the tops off the cakes, keeping the bottom slices about 1/8 inch thick.* Pull out the insides of the domed stops, leaving 1/8-inch shells. Brush the insides of the shells and the cut sides of the bottom slices with the warm apricot glaze. Set aside until the glaze is cooled and set.

Place the shells, cut sides down, on a wire rack set over a pan lined with baking/wax paper. Spoon the warm chocolate glaze over the top piece of each cake, letting the excess glaze run down the sides. If desired, use a metal spatula to scrape up the glaze, and drizzle over the shells to give them a second coat. Refrigerate the shells to set the glaze.

Transfer the whipped cream to a pastry bag fitted with an open-star tip. Pipe a tall swirl of cream onto each base. Use a small metal spatula to lift and place a shell over each base and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Makes 14 cakes. Eat on the day they are assembled.
* See above for my alternative assembly.