Ten browned mushroom caps, stems removed and hollow side up, on two slices of golden bread glossy with paprika-red oil, on a white plate beside a small silver dish with its lid ajar. — Browned mushroom caps, hollow side up, on two slices of bread glossy with paprika oil.

Mushrooms on Toast (1896)

Name: Mushrooms on Toast
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 20 min
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: ½ lb medium cremini mushrooms; 3 tbsp olive oil; 1 tsp sweet paprika; ⅛ tsp ground black pepper; ¼ tsp salt; 1 tbsp unsalted butter; 2 slices white bread

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Mushrooms on toast, the bachelor’s chafing-dish supper from Deshler Welch, 1896: caps browned under a lid in olive oil with paprika, on bread warmed in the same pan.

By The Forgotten MenuPublished Oct 29, 2026

Recipe makes: 2 slices, 2 servings
Prep: 5 min
Cook: 15 min
Total: 20 min

About 1 minute to warm the seasoned oil, 10 minutes for the mushrooms under the lid, and a minute or two for the bread.

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Browned mushroom caps, hollow side up, on two slices of bread glossy with paprika oil.

The story behind the recipe

Mushrooms on toast, cooked in a chafing dish, are what Deshler Welch’s bachelor makes for a hungry friend in The Bachelor and the Chafing Dish (New York, 1896). The chapter is headed Mushrooms for “Jim,” and Jim does not believe it can be done.

Why did Jim laugh at the chafing dish?

Jim walks in famished, hears that the larder holds nothing but mushrooms, and asks for “a broiled mushroom on toast.” The narrator promises him one, and Jim guesses where it will come from. “In a chafing-dish? Come off, old man!”

The narrator cooks them anyway, in olive oil reddened with paprika and given “a divination of black pepper.” The caps brown under the lid, and the bread is warmed afterward in the same hot pan, so it picks up what the mushrooms left behind.

The same pan, deviled

The oil and paprika come back later in the book. In a chapter called The Devil Dish, Welch defines deviling as “simply the art of frying anything well in a chafing-dish, in various hot condiments,” and his basic devil starts much like Jim’s mushrooms: enough olive oil to flood the pan, with paprika, salt and black pepper, and mustard added. Canned herrings, sardines, tongue and even Bologna sausage could go in, for a snack “at any hour of the day.”

Welch’s narrator says his mushrooms came “just from the field where I had found them.” No date is given for the evening, and Jim is a character in a story. What it does give is a method short enough to remember.

Making it today

Shop mushrooms replace field ones: we use cremini, stemmed so each cap has a hollow to hold its juice. With no weight from Welch, we use half a pound for two slices. A skillet with a lid stands in for the chafing dish, over medium heat, and Welch’s “well, say ten minutes” under the lid stays. Jim’s supper is one of four dishes in What Did a Chafing-Dish Supper Serve?, and the same book’s Chafing-Dish Oysters (1896) go onto toast the same way.

In the first place, they were fresh—just from the field where I had found them. Into the chafing-dish I put some sweet olive-oil—just enough to flood it. ...

Deshler WelchThe Bachelor and the Chafing Dish (New York and Chicago: F. Tennyson Neely, 1896), Mushrooms for “Jim,” pp. 12–13

Read the full story

Ingredients

For 2 slices, 2 servings. Quantities are shown as written.

Quantities as written here, for 2 slices, 2 servings.

Medium cremini mushrooms0.5 lb
Olive oil3 tbsp
Sweet paprika1 tsp
Ground black pepper1/8 tsp
Salt1/4 tsp
Unsalted butter1 tbsp
White bread2 slices

Ingredients as written here

½ lb medium cremini mushrooms
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp sweet paprika
⅛ tsp ground black pepper
¼ tsp salt
1 tbsp unsalted butter
2 slices white bread

Equipment

10-inch skillet with a lid
Warm covered dish

Instructions

Wipe the cremini mushrooms clean and pull out the stems, so each cap has a hollow underneath. Keep the stems for another dish.
Pour the olive oil into the skillet and stir in the sweet paprika, ground black pepper and salt. Warm it over medium-low heat for about 1 minute, until the paprika colors the oil; don’t let it smoke or darken.
Lay the caps in the pan in a single layer, hollow side up. Cover, raise the heat to medium and cook for about 10 minutes, until the tops are well browned against the pan, the caps are tender right through when pierced with a knife, and juice has pooled in the hollows.
Lift the mushrooms, still hollow side up, into the warm covered dish.
Add the unsalted butter to the hot pan. When it has melted, lay in the white bread and turn it in the butter and paprika oil for about 1 minute, until both sides are hot and glossy.
Put the bread on warm plates, pile the mushrooms on top, hollow side up, and serve at once.

Nutrition

330calories per serving

Recipe makes: 2 slices, 2 servings
Servings: 2

Estimated per serving (2) from USDA FoodData Central values for cremini mushrooms, olive oil, butter and white bread, counting all the oil as eaten.

Recipe notes

When adjusting quantities

Welch’s quantities are for two slices of bread. For more, cook the caps in batches or a wider pan so they sit in one layer, hollow side up.

Notes

Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.

Welch’s mushrooms were fresh field mushrooms; never cook wild mushrooms unless someone qualified has identified them. He names no variety, so white button mushrooms can stand in for cremini. The amounts of oil and mushrooms and the heat are our choices, as is reading “a divination of black pepper” as ⅛ teaspoon. His half ounce of butter is the tablespoon here. He doesn’t say whether to pour the pan oil over at the end, and we don’t.

Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.