The point of this post is to share a recipe for a mushroom soup. (Let the destination be established before the discourse takes its meandering route.)
The point of this post is to share a recipe for a mushroom soup. (Let the destination be established before the discourse takes its meandering route.)
It is March in Florida and (as if someone had flipped a switch) the daytime highs have jumped to 80′s (25-30°C).
Apart from the temperature, you can not tell the difference between winter and summer; you just notice that the live oaks look greener and have more leaves in them.
This makes me nostalgic for the times when summer was a really big deal and its arrival was a celebration.
I grew up in Finland and there the arrival of summer brought with it the “time of plenty”.
The farmers’ markets would have tiny little potatoes that you could cook without peeling them first; carrots, radishes, and other root vegetables with their stems still on; cultivated strawberries, wild blueberries and mushrooms and – my personal favorite – peas still in their pods.
All this before “think globally, eat locally” was a known slogan.
Finns get to take a whole month off during summer (in addition to couple of weeks during the rest of the year). So I have fond memories of going to the farmers’ markets with my mother and another thing we used to do is take all the rugs in the house and wash them in a body of water close by. All the floors were made of wood and my mother had weaved most of the rugs herself on a loom. (Damn! How wholesome was my childhood!!)
The rugs were taken to the closest body of water, dipped in the lake or sea and then a pine-based soap bar was applied to the rugs before rinsing them off.
Another summer routine was going to the woods to pick berries and mushrooms. The world’s oldest profession – really: gathering.
Going to the woods to pick mushrooms and berries was a national pastime and as much of a part of life as – say, Thanksgiving Friday shopping is in the US.
We would pick chanterelles and their close cousins, suppilovahvero (or trattkantarell, Cantharellus tubaeformis), porcinis, and other mushrooms I could not find English names for.
The blueberries grew in wild as tiny bushes close to the ground. We would also pick lingonberries (similar to cranberries) and sometimes cranberries growing wild in the bogs.
If you got lucky, you found a batch of wild strawberries; minuscule in size compared to their cultivated counterparts but packing twice the flavor.
So, back to the point of this post; the recipe: This is a soup made of mushrooms. Every once in awhile I receive a treasured package of dried suppilovahvero from Finland and have the pleasure of turning it into a soup. But this recipe can still work for you without those Finnish supply lines; just buy some dried chanterelles (or porcinis, etc.). Another thing about this recipe is that it is all about “abouts”, “eyeball it”, approximate it. The ratio of dried/fresh mushrooms can be changed up to the point where all mushrooms are dried. I don’t recommend, however, using all fresh mushrooms as the dried seem to pack more flavor and should therefore be included, ALWAYS. I often make this soup in the slow cooker but no reason to make it on the stow-top in a Dutch oven type of dish… It might actually be easier as you have to sauté ingredients on the stove top at first anyway and then add to the slow cooker insert. When cooking on the stove-top, just add liquids and let simmer.
You need
§ 3 TBSP of butter
§ 2 onions
§ 4 cloves of garlic (more or less according to taste)
§ Minimum of ½ oz. dried mushrooms (chanterelles, porcinis, etc.)
§ Minimum of ½ lb fresh mushrooms, such as shitake, portobellos
§ 4 cups of broth (vegetable, beef, chicken)
§ 1 cup of dry red wine
§ Ground black pepper
§ Salt
§ Thyme (optional)
§ Bay leaf (optional)
§ Scallion (optional)
§ Cheese; bleu or goat, (even cream cheese will do)
§ Cream, about 1 cup
Re-constitute the dried mushrooms by pouring about 2 cups of hot water on them. After about 30 minutes drain the mushrooms preserving the liquid.
Sauté chopped onions, fresh mushrooms, and garlic in about 1-2 TBSP of butter. Place in slow cooker insert (if using).
Sauté drained dried mushrooms in about 1 TBSP of butter. Place in slow cooker insert (if using); proceed with adding the broth, wine, salt, and pepper; bay leaf and thyme.
Cook 3 to 4 hours on high if using the slow cooker; about 45 minutes on the stove top. Towards the end of the cooking time add the cheese and the cream.
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- Some fresh chives to top it off… Bon Appetit!
