Blanched Mushrooms
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Remove the stalks from the mushrooms and reserve them for chopping.
Wash the mushroom heads in clean water and drain them in a sieve.
In a saucepan, combine ½ cup of cold water and ¼ teaspoon of coarse sea salt.
Peel each mushroom head and add them to the saucepan immediately to prevent browning.
Blanch and reserve
Bring the saucepan to a boil over high heat and cook the mushrooms for 5 minutes.
Transfer the mushrooms to a basin and set aside.
Make the stalk liquid
Chop the reserved stalks finely and add them to the saucepan with 3 tablespoons of the cooking liquid.
Simmer for 3 minutes, then transfer to a jar for later use.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Mushrooms
- Form the main body of the dish, and their flesh softens and darkens slightly when cooked.
- Mushroom stalks
- Add concentrated mushroom flavour to the cooking liquid once chopped and simmered.
The step that matters
Adding the peeled mushrooms to the saucepan immediately. Peeled mushroom flesh is exposed to air and oxidises quickly, causing browning. Dropping the heads straight into the cold salted water limits this discolouration before cooking begins.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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