Many recipes in older cookbooks assume you know the basics. For instance, these recipes for mushroom pie assume you know how to make a crust. They also assume you know how long to bake a dish. They either just say “bake” or else give general information such as a slow, moderate or quick oven. Although some people did gather their own mushrooms, mushrooms were available in tin cans or bottles.

INFORMATION BELOW COMPILED FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS

MUSHROOM PIE
Ingredients—Puff, flaky, or short crust. Mushrooms, boiled potatoes, butter, pepper and salt.
Method.—Roll out the paste, and prepare a pie-dish as for beef-steak pie. Mash the potatoes with butter, pepper, and salt. Peel the mushrooms and cut off the ends of the stalks. Put the potatoes and mushrooms in alternate layers in the pie-dish. Cover with the paste and finish off and decorate like a beef-steak pie. Bake in a quick oven for about three-fourths of an hour.

MUSHROOM PIE, COLD
Prepare the ingredients as directed above, adding a little chopped parsley and extra seasoning of pepper. Bake all these in the dish before you cover with paste. When the mushrooms and potatoes are perfectly tender, strain off all the juice or gravy, and thicken it with corn-flour.*

Put this back in the pie-dish and mix all well together. Pile it up in the middle of the dish so that the center is raised above the edge. Let this get quite cold, then cover it with puff-paste and bake. As soon as the pastry is done, take it out of the oven and let the pie get cold. This can now be cut in slices.

*corn-flour – finely ground cornmeal in the U.S.; or cornstarch in the U.K.

MUSHROOM PIE No. 2
Put on a stew-pan with a piece of  fat. Cut up one large Spanish onion very small, add to the fat and brown nicely. Cover with water and stew along with the contents of a tin or bottle of white French mushrooms (including the liquid), also pepper and salt to taste. Stew till the mushrooms are tender, then take out and chop. Dish along with other contents of saucepan and when cool, add a cup of brown bread crumbs and one beaten egg. Cover with puff paste or short crust and bake. Serve with brown sauce.

MUSHROOM AND CELERY PIE
Cook and drain one and one-half quart celery cut in inch lengths. Cut one and one-half pints mushrooms in quarters or eighths, cook for 10–15 minutes in salted water, then drain, keeping the liquid. Arrange cooked celery and mushrooms in a baking dish with parsley sprinkled between layers. Pour over the following sauce, cover with pastry crust, and bake.

Sauce — Rub five tablespoons melted butter with six tablespoons flour. Take the liquid drained from the mushrooms and celery with additional water to make one quart. Pour the liquid over, boil up well, and add salt.

MUSHROOM AND OYSTER PLANT [SALSIFY] PIE
Sauce — Two and one-half tablespoons melted butter. Three tablespoons flour. One and one-half cup water (part mushroom liquor if any). One-half cup cream. Salt.

Mix the flour and butter, pour boiling water over, stirring, add cream and salt. Chop cooked oyster plant and mushrooms in pieces (two-thirds oyster plant, one-third mushrooms), one pint in all, into a baking dish. Pour sauce over it, cover with universal or pastry crust and bake.

MUSHROOM AND TOMATO PIE
For a fair-sized pie, get three-fourth pound medium-sized flap mushrooms, the meadow ones are best, and one pound good firm tomatoes. Remove the stalks from the mushrooms and wipe with a piece of clean flannel dipped in oatmeal or salt. Unless very dirty, it is best not to wash them, as that somewhat spoils the flavor.

Pare and put a layer in a pie-dish, along with slices of tomato, pared and free from seeds. Put a little bit of butter on each, dust with salt and pepper, and repeat till the dish is heaped up. Cover with a good, rough puff paste, and bake till the paste is ready, about an hour. No water should be put in, but the trimmings of the mushrooms and tomatoes should be stewed in a little water, and this gravy may be added with a funnel after the pie is cooked.

MUSHROOM SHEPHERD’S PIE
Recipe same as for mushroom pie, but covered with nicely mashed potatoes, adding pepper and salt to the latter. Beat well and cover, stroke with a fork, and brown in the oven.

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