A Few Recipes

As promised before, here are the three recipes.

Wild Mushroom Soup:
(adapted from Mushroom Soup recipe, Les Halles Cookbook by Anthony Bourdain)

8 tbsp butter, divided
3 shallots, thinly sliced
12 oz wild mushrooms, cleaned of any dirt, plus a few nice ones for garnish
4 cups chicken stock (do not use bouillon cubes for this. Too salty. If you don't have the means to use homemade stock, use the boxed Tetra-Pak kind, not the canned kind)
1 sprig fresh parsley
2 oz (one shot) good Sherry (not the cooking Sherry - again, too salty. Will ruin your soup)
salt and pepper

In medium saucepan, melt 2 tbsp butter over medium heat. Add shallots and cook, stirring often, till soft and translucent.
Add 12 oz mushrooms and remaining butter. Let cook for 8 minutes, stirring, making sure onion DOES NOT brown. Stir in chicken stock and parsley and bring to a boil. Immediately reduce heat to low and simmer for one hour.
After an hour, remove parsley and discard. Remove soup from heat and let cool 10 minutes. Transfer to blender and blend at high speed till smooth. Do this in batches, and hold lid down on blender with all your weight, so that the pressure of the steam won't blow the lid off the blender and cause you to get a faceful of blazing hot mushroom goo. Once each batch is done, transfer it back to the pot.
Once all the soup has been blended and returned to the pot, season to taste with salt and pepper, place back on the stove, and bring back to a simmer. Add sherry, mix well, and serve. Add a few whole or sliced fresh mushrooms on top for garnish if desired.

This recipe works well with morels, oyster mushrooms, chanterelles, shiitakes, and even button mushrooms.



Easy Fudgy Brownies


1/3 cup real butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tbsp vanilla
5 heaping teaspoons cocoa



Melt butter, add sugar, then egg. Add dry ingredients. Mix ingredients well together by hand. Some lumps are allowable - you don't want to overmix your brownies, as they'll become tough. Put in greased 9" round pan. Bake in 375°F oven for 20 minutes, or until done. Ice while still warm. Keep covered. This particular brownie recipe gets stale very fast.


Buttercream Frosting

2 sticks butter (real butter, not margarine, and not shortening)
3/4 box Domino's confectioner's sugar (the 16-oz box)
4 tbsp heavy cream to start (I buy a half-pint of cream to work with)

Cream together butter and sugar using the paddle attachment on my KitchenAid mixer. Add 4 tbsp of cream and mix until thoroughly combined. Switch to wire whisk and beat for five minutes to aerate frosting. Check consistency and add more cream if necessary, working with one tbsp at a time.