MUSHROOMS AU GRATIN.—­This is a very delicious dish, and is often served as an entree at first-class dinners.  They are made from what are known as cup mushrooms.  It is best to pick mushrooms, as far as possible, the same size, the cup being about two inches in diameter.  Peel the mushrooms very carefully, without breaking them, cut out the stalks close down with a spoon, scoop out the inside of the cup, so as to make it hollow.  Now peel the stalks and chop them up with all the scooped part of the mushroom, with, supposing we are making ten cups, a piece of onion as big as the top of the thumb down to the first joint.  To this add a brimming teaspoonful of chopped parsley, or even a little more, a saltspoonful of dried thyme, or half this quantity of fresh thyme.  Fry all this in a frying-pan, in a little butter.  The aroma is delicious.  Then add sufficient dried bread-crumbs that have been rubbed through a wire sieve to make the whole into a moist paste, fill each of the cups with this mixture so that the top is as convex as the cup of the mushroom, having first seasoned the mixture with a little pepper, salt, and lemon-juice.  Shake some fine bread-raspings over the top so as to make them of a nice golden-brown colour, pour a little drop of oil into a baking-tin, place the mushrooms in it, and bake them gently in an oven till the cup part of the mushroom becomes soft and tender, but take care they do not cook till they break.  Now take them out carefully with an egg-slice, and place them on a dish—­a silver dish is best for the purpose-and place some nice, crisp, fried parsley round the edge.

MUSHROOMS A LA BORDELAISE.—­This, as the name implies, is a French recipe.  It consists of ordinary grilled mushrooms, served in a sauce composed of oil or oiled butter, chopped up with parsley and garlic, thickened with the yolks of eggs.

MUSHROOMS A LA PROVENCALE.—­This is an Italian recipe.  You must first wash, peel, and dry the mushrooms, and then soak them for some time in what is called a marinade, which is another word for pickle, of oil mixed with chopped garlic, pepper, and salt.  They are then stewed in oil with plenty of chopped parsley over rather a brisk fire.  Squeeze, a little lemon-juice over them and serve them in a dish surrounded with a little fried or toasted bread.

MUSHROOM FORCEMEAT.—­The mushrooms after being cleaned should be chopped up and fried in a little butter; lemon-juice should be added before they are chopped in order to preserve their colour.  One or two hard-boiled yolks of eggs can be added to the mixture, and the whole rubbed through a wire sieve while hot.  When the mixture is hot it should be moist, but, of course, when it gets cold, owing to the butter it will be hard.  This mushroom forcemeat can be used for a variety of purposes.

MUSHROOM PIE.—­Wash, dry, and peel some mushrooms, and cut them into slices with an equal quantity of cut-up potatoes.  Bake these in a pie, having first moistened the potatoes and mushrooms in a little butter.  Add pepper and salt and a small pinch of thyme.  Cover them with a little water and put some paste over the dish in the ordinary way.  It is a great improvement, after the pie is baked, to pour in some essence of mushrooms made from stewing the stalks and peelings in a little water.  A single onion should be put in with them.