For this purpose the small button mushrooms are best. Wash them
clean, peel off the skin, and cut off the stalks. Put the
trimmings into a small sauce-pan with just enough water to keep
them from burning, and, covering them closely, let them stew a
quarter of an hour. Then strain the liquor, and having put the
mushrooms into a clean sauce-pan, (a silver one, or one lined with
porcelain,) add the liquid to them with a little nutmeg, pepper
and salt, and a piece of butter rolled in flour. Stew them fifteen
minutes, and just before you take them up, stir in a very little
cream or rich milk and some beaten yolk of egg. Serve them hot.
While they are cooking, keep the pan as closely covered as
possible.
If you wish to have the full taste of the mushroom only, after
washing, trimming, and peeling them, put them into a stew-pan with
a little salt and no water. Set them on coals, and stew them
slowly till tender, adding nothing to them but a little butter
rolled in flour, or else a little cream. Be sure to keep the pan
well covered.