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Classical French Mushroom Soup | Recipeish | Gustus Vitae

by Frankie Scanlon
Yield: 6 Appetizer soups.
Time Estimate:  1 Hour.
Storage Notes: Best if enjoyed immediately. Can be bottled and refrigerated for 1 day, frozen for 1 week.
Difficulty: Easy.
 

Auguste Escoffier both codified and updated Classical French cuisine - elaborate, fancy meals, often time consuming preparations, exotic ingredients, using an unholy amount of butter - the whole bit. This soup is our riff on his chanterelle soup recipe. While it's not hard to make, it's bit technical with the processes and steps, but everything is made much, much easier by a good blender like Vitamix.

You can taste the love in this one - intensely satisfying, while being simultaneously light and rich, airy and deep.

Ingredients

  • 6 Cups stock (we used homemade duck, but chicken will do just fine)
  • 1 1/2 Lbs mushrooms (we use a mix of chanterelle, portabella, and button)
  • 8 Tbs unsalted butter
  • 1 Large white onion
  • 2 Tbs flour
  • 4 Tbs French Onion Seasoning
  • 1/2 Cup heavy whipping cream
  • 3 Eggs
  • Garnish: chives, edible flowers, or a seared chanterelle work well
Directions
  • Peel onion, and finely mince. Dust off mushrooms, and slice thinly.
  • Pour stock into a pot and bring up to medium low.
  • In a large saucepan, make a basic roux by first melting 2 Tbs of butter, then adding flour. Whisk on low heat and cook for about 10 minutes, stirring regularly, and add 1 Tbs of French Onion Seasoning.
  • Slowly, and doing about 1/10th of the volume at a time, pour in a bit of hot stock into the roux, whisking as you do. 
  • Once all poured in and incorporated, you now have a basic velouté - one of the six mother sauces of French cuisine.
  • Transfer velouté back to the pot, and continue cooking on low for a further 10 minutes while stirring occasionally - the volume should reduce by around 1/3rd.
  • Bring a cast iron pan up to high heat, and melt 2 Tbs of butter. Sauté onions until just beginning to brown - around 5 minutes. Remove and reserve.
  • Return pan to heat, adding another 2 Tbs of butter, and sauté the mushrooms with 1 Tbs of French Onion Seasoning, until they have given up their moisture - about another 5 minutes.
  • In a large blender, add onions, mushrooms, and about half of the velouté.
  • Pulse, add more velouté, 2 more Tbs of French Onion Seasoning, and pulse again, until everything is in the blender, and it's able to churn the soup at a low speed.
  • Separate yolks from eggs, and whisk together yolks and cream. While we're getting technical, this called a liaison - it's traditionally used to add even more richness to traditional French soups, and that's exactly what we're doing here.
  • Increase blender speed to high, and slowly drizzle in liaison, a bit at a time.
  • The blender does the work for you, and using it, while pouring in just a bit at a time, will both prevent your soup from 'breaking' and the eggs from cooking and not incorporating.
  • Serve in small bowls and garnish as you like.
  • Pop that pinky and devour - this is a real treat of a soup.

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