Mushroom bisque...boy, I really messed it up
I had a ton of button mushrooms so I decided to try making this during the recent snow event. I used dried wood ear type mushrooms rather than porchini, which was probably the kiss of death. Also, I used my immersion blender to puree and it wasn't smooth enough, IMO. Grainy.
Anyway, the final product was not good. I ate one bowlfull, then tossed the rest. It tasted....woody.
So do you think it was the mushrooms? Any tried and true recipes and/or techniques? I love mushrooms, normally, and would like to be able to make this successfully.
By tcamp
on Feb 11, 2010 02:23 PM
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I recently made a mushroom soup. I had a few left over button mushroom.Removed the stem, which I chopped and cooked in a small amount of homemade chicken broth for 20 minutes. Sauteed chopped onions and added 1 pound of sliced mushrooms slowly. This released some liquid. Added 4 The TBS flour to thicken. Combined the thicken onion and mushrooms in a pot with 4 cups of chicken broth and cooked all for half and hour.Pureed all with hand blender added milk or cream, seasoning and some white wine and served.
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Your mistake was to use the dried wood ear fungus. In my experience, Crimini or Portobello mushrooms make the best soups. White or Button mushrooms are good as well, but the mushroom flavor is not as intense to hold up to the other ingredients used.
My method is to use the caps and stems sauteed with onions, sometimes celery.....blend or puree with a hand boat motor combined with hot chicken stock.....season to taste and finish with tempered heavy cream......I have no problems myself with the immersion blender.
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The wood ears would never get soft enough to purée successfully - they always have a little bit of a cartilaginous bite to them. They also don't have a real mushroom taste. You might have been able to rescue it by blending it like mad in a regular blender but I expect the flavor wouldn't have warranted the effort. Crimini or buttons with a small amount of soaked dried porcinis would be the way I would go.
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