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Wild mushroom shallot bisque

Ingredients (serves ~15-20)

  • 1.5 quarts chicken or vegetable broth
  • 3 pounds crimini mushrooms, coarsely chopped. try to avoid safeway mushrooms, they're bitter
  • 1 pound wild mushrooms (oyster or chanterelle), coarsely chopped
  • 1 package dried morels
  • 2 yellow onions, coarsely chopped   (2lbs 4oz / 1kg whole)
  • 5 shallots, finely chopped  (8oz / 236g whole)
  • 6 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped   (1oz / 30g cloves)
  • 16oz salted butter
  • 2 cups whipping cream
  • 2 cups sherry cooking wine
  • salt, pepper, thyme, rosemary, sage
  • garnish: grated parmesan, sauteed crimini in white wine, pearl onions

Directions

  1. Boil the dried morels for 20-30 minutes
  2. Melt 8oz (2 half sticks) of butter in a large soup pot on medium heat
  3. add onion, shallot, and garlic. Salt, pepper, and saute over medium heat until softened
  4. Strain morel broth, mince mushrooms and add to broth
  5. add broth to onion mixture and bring to simmer.
  6. brown mushrooms in two batches!
  7. in a separate large skillet, melt 4oz (1 half stick) butter.
  8. add half the mushrooms and brown somewhat
  9. add half the sherry.
  10. sautée on medium heat until all liquid is reduced away
  11. add sautéed mushrooms to broth, bring to simmer, and then reduce heat to low, cover
  12. repeat for the other mushroom batch.
  13. add 1 tsp sage, 1 tsp thyme, 1tsp ground black pepper, 1 tsp rosemary and stir
  14. simmer indefinitely, minimum 1 hour.
  15. Blend with immersion blender, 5-10 minutes, until very smooth
  16. At this point the soup can simmer indefinitely, or be refrigerated. Refrigerating overnight is fine, better even.
  17. When ready to serve:
  18. Heat just to a simmer (occasional bubbles)
  19. Stir in cream at the end
  20. Adjust salt, pepper, thyme, and honey to taste, since the cream dilutes the soup
  21. ladle and serve with garnish

Notes
  • Using too many wild mushrooms (like oyster) can make the soup slime-y
  • The sherry flavor isn't strong at all, so if you want it to taste boozy you need to add more at the end
  • Salt will definitely be wrong at the end, so be sure to re-season just before serving
  • The pearl onions are a pain in the ass, so for large scale serving just a sprinkle of parm on top is fine


Old notes

    • 2016:
      • I bought more oyster mushrooms this time, so I did half oyster and half white, 2Kg total.
      • I increased the butter to 1 stick per Kg mushrooms and the sherry to 1 cup per Kg mushrooms.
      • I didn't bother salting it much ahead of time, figuring it would be good to do it when the cream went in
      • The soup's texture is a little slimy with so much oyster.
      • That was a ton of butter, maybe less butter or more cream?
    • 2014:
      • There were so many mushrooms I had to do them in two pans
      • I didn't use the honey, and I didn't salt the mushrooms
      • I used way more sherry this time and it was fine.
        • Changes to the recipe this year:
        • 1.5 quarts veggie broth (from a box)
        • 2 pounds crimini mushrooms
        • 1 pound oyster mushrooms
        • 2 yellow onions
        • 5 shallots
        • 6 cloves garlic
        • 2 cups cream
        • 14 oz butter total (3.5 half-sticks: 8oz in the broth, 4oz in the first mushroom pan, 2oz in the second. It was a little too much, but not way too much.)
        • 1.5 cups sherry
        • "some" black pepper, not measured
        • 1 tsp each of sage and thyme. Didn't use rosemary.
    • Refridgerated the soup overnight. Easy and delicious.
    • Blended the next day.
    • Added cream at the very end.
    • Previous ratios from recipe above:
      • 1 quarts chicken or vegetable broth
      • 1.5 pound white or crimini mushrooms, coarsely chopped
      • 1 pound wild oyster mushrooms, coarsely chopped
      • 1 yellow onion, coarsely chopped
      • 3 large shallots, finely chopped
      • 4 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
      • 8 tablespoons butter
      • 1.5 cups whipping cream
      • 0.5 cups sherry cooking wine
      • salt, pepper, thyme, rosemary, sage
      • honey, if bitter
      • garnish: grated parmesan, sauteed crimini in white wine, pearl onions
    • Older notes:
      • I also boiled a batch of pearl onions and placed one in the bottom of each soup bowl along with some sauteed crimini mushrooms.
      • A topped with a bit of finely grated parmesan
      • The first time I made this I tasted the mushrooms when i sauteed them and they seemed bitter. The soup was also a bit bitter. I sweetened it with quite a bit of honey, which helped the bitterness. The produce was from the corner store, I wonder if it was that.
      • The sherry doesn't really make it taste boozy, so I think you'd have to add more sherry at the very end to get that.