[Sca-cooks] mushroom pate or caviar

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Gaylin Walli:
>Greetings!
>
>I've been wracking my brain for the last two 
>days trying to remember where I saw a period 
>recipe for a paté made with mushrooms. And I've 
>had no luck. I'm beginning to doubt that I saw 
>it at all except that I wrote it down in my 
>notes. I've done some searching online and some 
>more searching through my notes to no avail. 
>Please please please...can anyone help me 
>remember or am I just going senile here? It may 
>have been something as obscure as a potted meat 
>recipe with a minor note that you could use 
>mushrooms instead but I just can seem to find it.

Potted Mushrooms, a.k.a. mushroom butter, is a 
legitimate English teatime thing, used for making 
little sandwiches on brown bread or some such.

Basically, you use about equal parts by weight 
raw (cleaned, trimmed, dry, not peeled) mushrooms 
and butter, plus seasonings to taste. Soften the 
butter at room temp for a while, until soft and 
whippable. Some recipes suggest sauteeing the 
mushrooms over medium heat (IOW, not browning 
them) in some of the butter, seasoning with salt, 
pepper, and perhaps a squeeze of lemon, then 
pureeing them with the rest of the butter, and 
using it as a spread.

I prefer the mushrooms recognizably chopped, even 
if you use a food processor on pulse to do it, 
either before or after cooking, then adding most 
of the remaining butter, mixing, and packing into 
a jar or pot, then melting the last of the butter 
and pouring it over the top to 'seal".

Shrimp are also excellent done this way, except 
you use the dry the shells as if you were making 
stock, then add the butter and simmer briefly, to 
make a shrimp-flavored butter.

Adamantius