gourmet babble

from 27 February 2002

Oh, the lovely mushroom….

I love mushrooms. I worship mushrooms. I love their earthiness, their rich flavor, their unique fleshy joy. And I love mushroom dishes — the Wild Mushroom Soup with Foie Gras at Christopher's Fermier Brasserie in Phoenix, the mushroom cappuccino at Tru in Chicago (and their predecessor Trio in Evanston), and of course all of Charlie's wonderful mushroom creations.

So I got to thinking: I have to be able to do this myself. Oh, sure, not as well or anything, but still…. The problem is that mushroom broth, which I've been using as a dish enhancer for years already, is thin and very mushroom-acrid, without the necessary sweetness or fullness to bring out the true mushroom taste. So the big question to me always was, "how do you make a sweeter, more 'soupy' soup?" I pondered this for months, maybe even years, until I was staring into my fridge one day at the big carton of cream we keep around for tea. Duh! Of course! I then realized there was probably a good reason that Campbell called it "Cream of Mushroom Soup", and felt truly embarassed….

Screw the embarassement, I was on the cusp of making a great soup! One revision later, I've gotten it even better. So here we go….

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup or so, dried mushrooms (good ones)
• 2 tbsp or so, butter (unsalted better)
• 1 cup or so, heavy cream
• 1-2 cups, chicken broth or "no-chicken" broth
• >3 tbsp or so, black truffle infused olive oil
• 2 cloves of garlic, whole (but peeled)
• 1 tsp or so, pepper (preferably a mix of colors)
• 1/2 tsp or so, onion powder
• 1/2 tsp or so, tarragon
• dash of nutmeg
• kosher or sea salt to taste (or both, but watch the salt, ok?)

PREPARATION:

Start 1-2 cups of water heating (to boil) in a big pot. Add the dried mushrooms. I recommend making sure at least half are shiitake; they are very flavorful and very cost-effective (given that you're talking about a class of foods that costs between $30 and $125 per pound). Personally, I do about 2/3 whole shiitake, and the rest some combo of crimini, chanterelle, and/or porcini. But I'm going to try different combos later. Let the mushrooms reconstitute for about 20 minutes, covered to avoid boilover.

Add in the broth at this point; reduce heat to simmer. Stir for a little bit to mix, and then add the butter. Stir until butter melts. Now add the garlic cloves, the onion powder, the tarragon, the nutmeg, the pepper, the salt, and whatever else strikes your fancy. Stir to mix things up. At this point add the truffle-infused oil. Mmmmmm. Stir to break it up on the surface into lots of little tiny oil bubbles. Doesn't that just smell yummy? Let this simmer uncovered for 15-20 minutes. Stir in cream. Stir some more. Let simmer uncovered for 5-10 minutes, stirring every so often. Remove from heat.

Take your blender, food processor, nuclear shredder, whatever and puree the mixture, carefully. "Carefully" is key, because as experienced chefs (of which I am not one) know, too much cream in a blender will cause an instant frothy violent explosion. Daniel Boulud adds "in small batches" to his puree instructions, and now I know why. The first one I did blew the top off my blender and spewed boiling hot mushroom-cream everywhere, including all over the hand that was holding the lid on the blender. (This can produce second degree burns. Please avoid.) The blender is necessary for the solid ingredients — the mushrooms and the garlic cloves — and the rest simply needs to be mixed together well with your garmushroom puree.

SERVING:

4-8 servings, depending on how big your bowls are and how greedy you are. Goes great hot or cold. Also works nicely as an amuse bouche in a small, ornate vessel with a fancy spoon. If you can puree it well enough, it would probably also work as a soup-shot amuse bouche in a cappucino glass, but I can't puree mushrooms that fine.

SCALING:

Linear, I think.