cappyhead

A neighborhood friend has been foraging in the forest for mushrooms. She's very knowledgable about them and sometimes sells them to restaurants. She loves to eat them, but hates to cook. She is also a fabulous gardener and has given me a lot of plants and advice. She asked our neighborhood Facebook group if anyone would be willing to make and share a recipe using chanterelles, if she provided the mushrooms. I stepped up, since I wasn't sure I'd even knowingly eaten a chanterelle. I basically followed this recipe: http://cappyhead.livejournal.com/89657.html

Ingredients

2 teaspoons olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped onion
1⁄2 teaspoon chopped garlic (I just used one clove of garlic)
1⁄2 lb chanterelle mushroom, sliced
1 teaspoon flour
2 tablespoons white wine
3 1⁄2 cups chicken stock
1 cup heavy cream or 1 cup whipping cream
salt and pepper
My additions:
2 - 3 tablespoons of cornstarch
3 - 4 tablespoons of sherry, to taste

Directions

In a saucepan, heat the olive oil, then add the onion, garlic and chanterelles. Cook until the onions are transparent. Dust with the flour. Add the white wine and chicken stock. Stir to combine. Simmer for 30 minutes. Add the heavy cream and simmer for another 5 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve in prewarmed bowls, and garnish with chives or parsley.

What I actually did:

First off, since she gave me almost a pound of chanterelles, I doubled the recipe. Also, I was taught that you should salt & pepper your onions before/while sauteeing them, so I did that, too. I thought it was weird that the recipe said to sautee the onions, garlic & mushrooms all at the same time, but I followed the recipe as written. Next time I'll sautee the onions & garlic first, as it was difficult to even see the onions to judge their doneness amongst all of the mushrooms.

Other than adding some sherry into the mix at the end, I pretty much followed the recipe exactly, since I'd never made a mushroom bisque before. Once I had added the heavy cream, I thought the broth was a bit thin, so I thickened it a little bit at the end with a cornstarch & water slurry and simmered for a few more minutes. I also thought that the mushroom-to-broth ratio was way off. It needed about twice as many mushrooms. So before I gave half of the soup to my friend, I ladled off almost a quart of broth. (Tasty, tasty broth!) I'm going to sautee some baby bellas today and stir them into the remaining broth.

My opinion about chanterelles is that they were lovely, but perhaps my palate isn't refined enough to tell the difference between them and regular white button mushrooms. Or perhaps this wasn't the best recipe to allow their uniqueness to come through. I mean, it just tasted like mushroom bisque. Delicious mushroom bisque, but no different than I imagine a bisque made with any other mushroom would taste. The texture was softer then other mushrooms, though. They didn't have the squeakiness that a white button mushroom or portobello would have.

Conclusion: would make again, with twice as many mushrooms (or half the amount of liquid). In my not-so-humble opinion, the soup was as good as any I have had in a fancy restaurant. I think I got the seasoning just right. I also think the addition of some sherry at the end is crucial.
KEEWERD

1 head of cauliflower, cut into small florets
3 - 4 cloves of garlic
1 - 2 carrots roughly chopped
Shredded cheddar cheese (amount unspecified)
Heavy cream (amount unspecified)
Onion powder (or sauteed onions)
one cup chicken stock
salt to taste
pepper to taste
butter

Melt butter in a pot. Sautee garlic, cauliflower and carrots over medium-high heat until slightly softened. Add onion powder, salt and pepper. And about a cup of chicken stock. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer with lid on for about 10 minutes.

At this point you could turn the heat to low (or off), add cheese and cream, and puree using an immersion blender. I don't have an immersion blender, so I blended the veggies in batches in my Bullet blender. With each batch of veggies I added a small handful of pre-shredded sharp cheddar cheese and enough cream so that the stuff blended well. With each batch I emptied the blender into the storage container that I was going use to keep the soup in the fridge and stirred the batches together in the container. Before I did the last batch I tasted the pureed soup & decided I wanted a sharper cheese flavor and it needed more salt, so with my last batch of veggies and cream (and the small amount of stock that was in the pot) I added salt and some small chunks of a different kind of sharper cheddar that I had on hand. Dump the puree into the storage container and stir it all up. Taste and smile.
KEEWERD

2 yellow onions [totally optional]
4 tablespoons butter [you don't need it if you omit the onions]
5 pounds red potatoes [Yukon gold potatoes work just fine, too]
2 32 ounce boxes chicken stock
2 - 3 heads garlic
2 cups shredded cheese [cheddar and asiago is a nice combination]
1 cup heavy cream or half and half
salt & pepper [pepper is optional]
water [if needed]

‎Use a large pot (one gallon capacity). Peel, dice & saute onions in butter with salt & pepper until soft. Add 2 boxes of chicken stock. Peel and cube 5 pounds red potatoes. Add to the chicken stock. Add some water if the chicken stock does not completely cover the potatoes. Cook on medium heat until potatoes are soft and reduce heat to low. Meanwhile, roast three heads of garlic wrapped in foil at 350 degrees for about an hour. Squish the soft garlic cloves into a blender. Add about a third of the cooked potatoes & broth to the blender. Blend until smooth. Pour into a large bowl. Add another third of the potatoes & broth. Blend until smooth. Add it back to your soup pot, and add the pureed potato & garlic to the soup pot as well. (I like some potato chunks in my soup, but if you don't you can blend all of soup.) Stir until well blended. Add 2 cups of shredded cheese (this time I used a parmesan/romano/asiago cheese blend). Add a cup of cream or half & half. Stir until well blended. If the soup is too thin, cook on medium-low heat until it reaches desired thickness. Add salt if needed. Serve with bacon bits sprinkled on top, if desired.

Makes approximately one gallon of soup.