If you’re an avid reader of our little blog (bless you), you may have noticed the array of mushroom soup pictures on the side that have gone without a recipe.  I figure its time to remedy this.  This is yet another perfect recipe from Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table.  Ok, near perfect, I made a couple tweaks to taste.  The thing that really sets this recipe apart from other mushroom soups is the beautiful raw salad that is served amid the warm, creamy soup.  The blend of textures, which subtly change as the salad spends time basking in the soup, is truly genius.  The ingredients are humble, yet they form a dish elegant enough to serve for company.  Ok, I’ve made you wait long enough as it is, on to the recipe!

Paris Mushroom Soup

Adapted from “Around My French Table”
Serves 4

For the Soup:
2 tbsp butter
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 1/2 lb white and brown mushrooms, sliced  (buy 2 lbs, you’ll need a few for the salad as well)
1/2 cup white wine
2 parsley stems
2 sprigs fresh thyme
1 small rosemary sprig
6 cups chicken stock
1/4 cup heavy cream

For the Optional Salad:
6-8 mushrooms, sliced paper thin
2 scallions, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
2 tbsps chives, snipped with kitchen shears into tiny rounds

1/4 cup crème fraiche or plain greek yogurt

In a large soup pot, melt the butter and olive oil over medium heat.  Saute the onions for about 5 minutes until softened, then add the garlic and cook 1 minute more.  Add the mushrooms and cook for 4-5 minutes until the mushrooms begin to soften and release their liquids.  Increase the heat to high and cook until the majority of the liquid has evaporated and the mushrooms being to brown slightly.  Pour in the wine, scraping the bottom of the pan to get all the lovely bits and cook until almost completely evaporated.    Season with salt and white pepper.

Add the herbs and stock and bring to a boil.   Lower the heat to medium-low and allow the soup to simmer 20 minutes.  Remove rosemary and thyme stems (the leaves will have fallen off at this point).

While the soup is simmering, let’s make the salad.  Slice your mushrooms wafer-thin.  Take your time and use a sharp knife.  In a small bowl mix together the herbs, scallions and mushrooms and season with a tiny bit of white pepper.  Don’t add salt until a moment before you’re ready to plate, otherwise it will begin to draw water from your veggies and soften their crisp texture.

Using an immersion blender (or working in small batches with your blender/food processor) puree the soup until its very smooth.  Time for the inevitable finicky portion of a french recipe: strain the soup through a fine-mesh sieve for an optimal, creamy texture.  Taste and adjust seasonings as needed.  Mine needed a good bit more white pepper and another pinch of salt.   Return soup to pan and stir in the cream, which I added just for the velvety mouthfeel only cream can provide and keep over very low heat until ready to serve.   Alternatively, you could stir in a few tablespoons of creme fraiche/ yogurt or just leave it out entirely.

To plate, pile up a bit of salad in the center of a low flat bowl.  Carefully pour the soup around the outside.  I’d recommend transferring some soup to a liquid measuring cup or gravy bowl and doing this right at the table for easy pouring and a lovely presentation.  Allow guests to top the soup with as much crème fraiche as they desire and an additional sprig of chive for good measure.  Très magnifique!

The final post of 2010!  Hopefully everyone has been enjoying their holiday vacation.  We spent a wonderful Christmas back home in Pennsylvania and received some incredibly thoughtful gifts.  The pinnacle of which for me was a vintage set of Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volumes 1 and 2.  Based on the publication dates, the books were likely part of the first edition boxed set when Volume 2 was released in 1970.  The books belonged to a dear family friend and I feel truly honored that they have passed into my care.

So of course the first thing I did when I got home was rush out to buy the ingredients to make Julia’s most famous dish, Boeuf Bourguignon.  I made a point of staying as true to the recipe as possible.  As such, rather than posting the recipe myself, here is a link to where Knopf (the publisher) has provided PDF files for the original recipe, as well as for the sauteed mushrooms and braised pearl onion components of the dish.

http://cooking.knopfdoubleday.com/2009/07/13/julia-childs-boeuf-bourguignon-recipe/

Now you may recall, dear reader, that about a year ago I posted a recipe for Beef Burgundy.  So I did have some expectation for how this dish would taste.  But despite the fact that these two recipes have a nearly identical ingredient list, the flavor, texture and elegance of Julia’s version cannot be matched.  It really is worth the time (4+ hours) and mighty stack of dishes in the sink.  This is one of those meals where you won’t even hear your guest’s delighted raves and kind compliments as you’ll be too involved with savoring your own plate.  And on that note, on to the photos!

the nicely browned beef

browning the carrots and onions in the drippings

the beef beginning its long simmer in the wine and stock

browning the non-crowded mushrooms in batches, while the beef is in the oven

the brown-braised onions, also cooked separately

the final dish coming together, after straining and skimming the sauce

for side dishes I provided a wild arugula salad, steamed peas, and crusty french bread

also some lovely parsley coated boiled potatoes

nate's beautifully composed plate (he suggested I copyright it Studio N8)

and one final shot of this heavenly dish! bon appetit!

For those of you that don’t live in SoCal, it’s been raining like the dickens out here.  Like nonstop.  For 5 days.  Basically California was broken.  It was as close to winter as it can get in LA, so I immediately began craving all those warm-you-to-the-core dishes that my mama used to cook for us when I was a young’un.  Black bean soups, beef stews, sweet and sour pork, creamed chipped beef, pot roast… you know, all those amazing wintertime delights that could never taste as good in a restaurant as in your mama’s kitchen.

One such dish is Beef Burgundy, which is basically a simpler, homestyle version of Julia’s Boeuf Bourguignon.  The biggest difference is that the bacon and carrot is removed, and the red wine is often a combo of wine and tomato sauce, or for those on slim budgets, just tomato sauce.  So sans recipe, I decided to whip up a batch of beef burgundy from the recollections of watching my mama make it back in PA combined with a few tricks of my own.  I think she’d agree I did it justice.

Beef Burgundy or Tenderloin Tips and Mushrooms in a Sherry and Red Wine Gravy
Serves 5 -6

2 lbs beef tenderloin tips or beef stew meat
flour to coat, about 1/4 cup
1/2 a sweet onion, medium dice
12 oz white mushrooms, sliced thick
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup dry sherry
1/2 cup good red wine (I like Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot for cooking)
3 – 4 cups beef broth
1 bay leaf
2 tbsp tomato paste
3 tbsp heavy cream

Place a large, heavy bottomed saucepan (I use my le creuset for this) over medium-high heat.  Coat the bottom with extra virgin olive oil.  While the pot is getting hot, cube up your beef into uniform 1-inch pieces.  If you can find tenderloin tips, I much prefer the cut to regular stew meat for this dish.  Its a lower fat content, therefore a less greasy gravy.  Not to mention the word tender is in its title, so you don’t have to cook it as long for it to breakdown and become soft.

Season the beef well with salt and pepper, then toss in flour gently to coat.  Brown the meat in two batches in the pan.  You’re looking for really good caramelization and color on the beef, like in the picture below.  If you went for a large cube size, don’t be concerned with cooking the meat through at this point.  Just go for the color on the outside.  And don’t worry about the flour that’s sticking to the pan, we’ll get to that later.

Pull the meat out and brown the second batch, adding more oil if necessary.  When the second batch is done, pull the beef out, set aside, and turn the heat down to medium.  Add the onions and mushrooms to the pan and saute.  As they begin to soften and release moisture, about 7 – 9 minutes, the liquid will pull up some of the browned nums that are stuck to the bottom of the pan.  This is a good thing.  Don’t worry if you don’t get it all now, you’ve got two more steps to scrape that all into the sauce.  When the onions are geting close to finished, add in the garlic and saute together for atleast a minute.  When the mushrooms and onions take on a beautiful golden color, you’re know they’re done.

Now its time to deglaze the pot with our liquors.  Raise the heat to high and add the sherry and red wine.  If you don’t have sherry on hand, feel free to use only wine, but I would recommend adding a few tsps of sugar for balance.  Now make sure you really scrape at the pan to pick up all that caramelized goodness.  It comes off pretty easy at this point.  Allow the liquid to cook off, reduce and thicken, which takes about 3-5 minutes.  That’s right, it’s starting to look a bit more like gravy now.

Alright, everybody in the pool.  Dump that beef back in, along with any juices that might have collected with it, as well as the bay leaf, tomato paste, and then top with the beef broth.  You might not need all 4 cups, but the broth should just cover the beef by about 1/2 inch.  Stir everything to combine and scrape down the sides of the pan.  When the mix comes to a simmer, turn the heat down to low and partially cover the pan, leaving the lid slightly askew.

Simmer over low heat for 45min – 1 hour, depending on the size and cut of your beef.  You’ll want to stir the pot every 15 minutes or so to make sure nothing’s sticking to the bottom.  How will you know its done?  The sauce will have reduced by half, and become deliciously smooth and thick like a good gravy.

Wowie wow!  Look how that sauce reduced.  Right at the end, I like to stir in a tiny bit of cream which I think really brings the sauce together and a nice pinch of fresh chopped parsley to add a bright note for contrast.  Both are totally optional, and totally worth it in my humble opinion.

Serve over buttered egg noodles with lots of delicious, sweet steamed peas.  Oh billy, your tummy will be thanking you.