Good To Have On Hand - Duxelles

1/2 pound mushrooms
1 medium onion
1 pound butter
1/2 teaspoon thyme
salt and pepper

Duxells are a basic ingredient that are used in such as stuffing for roast chicken, filling for raviolli or a base for sauces.

Place mushrooms and onions in a food processor and puree. Melt the butter on a skillet and add the puree, thyme, salt
and pepper.

Cook, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is completely dried out. Let cool before stuffing the caps.
(makes 1/2 cup)
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Chop Away for Lovely "DUXELLES" James Beard

I'm often surprised to find how few of my students are familiar with duxelles. One of the simplest and most versatile mix-tures that you can have on hand in the refrigerator.

Despite the exotic name, which is derived from that of the Marquis d'Uxelles, whose chef invented the special way of cooking mushrooms. It is idiotically easy to prepare, provided you don't mind expending a little energy in chopping. Duxelles is nothing more than finely chopped mushrooms cooked down slowly in butter until they become a dense, dark mass, almost a paste, marvelous for adding concentreated flavor to any- thing from soups to stews to sauces and stuffing.

To make a reasonable amount worth the effort of all that chopping, buy two to three pounds of mushrooms. They don't have to be large, perfect, spanking white caps. They can be small, varied in size and a bit discolored. The taste is what matters, not the appearance, so you can buy those slightly overage mushrooms that are often reduced for quick sale in supermarkets.

Pick the mushrooms over, wiping off any dirt or bits of straw with a damp paper towel, then put them on a board and slice them, stems and all. (The slices need not be even; this is just so they are easier to chop.) I like to use a large heavy-bladed French chopping knife or a Chinese clever, because the chopping goes faster with a big blade. I don't recommend
chopping them in a food processor -- they get too mushy.

Chop the slices by and until the pieces are firly fine, then put them in a
sturdy dish towel, a piece of muslin or several thicknesses of cheesecloth, pull up the corners and twist the fabric into a bag so the mushrooms are pushed into a tight ball. Then twist and squeeze as hard as you can with your hands to make them yield up a goodly amount of their liquid. It takes a good deal of force to extract as much liquid as possible, but keep on squeezing over a bowl until they seem comparatively dry.

Save the liquid for vegetable soup, a brown sauce or a stew that would be enhanced by a slight mushroom flavor. The point of this squeezing is that the mushrooms will cook down faster if there isn't a lot of excess liquid to evaporate.

Now melt one stick (a quarter-pound) of unsalted butter in a heavy 7- or 9-inch iron or stainless steel skillet over medium-low heat, open the cloth and tip in the mushrooms. Stir the mass with a wooden spoon to break it down and distribute it over the pan.

As they cook down, the remaining liquid will evaporate and the color will become very dark, almost black. This may take 30 minutes or more, and it is a process that you can't hurry. When uyou have a thick, reduced mass that holds together, season to taste. Usually I don't add salt, only about eight to
ten grinds of pepper, because it is my feeling that duxelles should be salted only as needed when it is added to a dish.

Transfer the duxelles to a crock or bowl and cool -- take a taste and you'll marvel at the intensity of that rich, buttery mushroom flavor -- and then cover with plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator. Duxelles will keep for 10 days to two weeks under refrigeration. It can be frozen, of course, but to my mind it loses something in the process. However, better to freeze than leave to spoil, so use your judgement as to how quickly you'll use it up.

This glorious mixture has infinite uses. You can add it to soups, sauces, scrambled eggs; use it as a filling for omelettes and crepes; mix it in stuffings; swirl it into mashed rutabagas, turnips, celery root , potatoes or winter squash; combine it with peas; or spread it on toast, heat and serve as an hors d'oeuvre. The taste is so fantastic, the very essence of mushroom, that you'll find yourself dreaming up more and more possibilities.

There are different flavor variations for duxelles. You can add six or seven finely chopped shallots to the butter just before putting in the mushrooms, mix the two well and let them cook down. Or put six or eight peeled whole shallots or three or four unpeeled garlic cloves in with the mushrooms after they
have started to cook, stir them around and remove them after the duxelles is cooked, which gives a slightly less assertive, but pleasant flavor.

One of my favorite ways to use duxelles is as the base for a quick, rich sauce for eggs, vegetables, poached fish filets or poached chicken. Combine one-half to one cup duxelles and one-half cup or more heavy cream in a saucepan and heat, stirring until it just reaches the boiling point. If you like, add
about two tablespoons Madeira or a tablespoon of Cognac and heat until the spirit evaporates, leaving only the flavor.

So don't be put off by the name. Once you've made duxelles and discovered how great a flavoring it can be, you'll wonder how you ever cooked without it.