A simple cream of dried porcini mushroom soup. Pick and choose your favorite garnishes. Yield: 2 qts of soup. Feel free to cut the recipe in half if you need.
4cups2oz dried boletus rex-veris, porcini, or other boletes like leccinums or slippery jacks
1cuphot water
½cupdry white wine
4cupschicken stock
2cupsheavy cream
½cupwhite onion
2cupspeeled and diced russet potatoyou could also use golden potatoes
1bay leafdried or fresh
Salt and white pepper
8tablespoonblack walnut pestorecipe here
Croutons of your choice to garnishwhole grain would be a great choice
Instructions
Heat the water to boiling in a pot and then pour over the mushrooms, allow to rehydrate for 10 minutes and then agitate the mushrooms vigorously in their liquid to remove any dirt. Remove the mushrooms from their liquid, strain the liquid through a fine strainer or cheese cloth, and then add back to the mushrooms.
Saute the onion until soft and translucent in a soup pot, making sure they do not brown, season them lightly with kosher salt. Add the wine and cook until most of it has evaporated, then add the potatoes, stock, porcini and their liquid.
Cook the soup covered at a gentle simmer until the potatoes are very tender, about 15 minutes.
Add the cream, now working in small batches if necessary, puree the mixture in a blender, alternatively you can puree the mixture with a hand blender.
Season the soup with salt until the porcini flavor really hits you in the face, then season with a little ground white pepper.
When the soup is finished, ladle it into the smallest soup bowls you have and serve, topping with the croutons and black walnut pesto. 1 cup of soup per person is ample, it is very rich.
Notes
This is pictured made with dried porcini mushrooms, but you can use just about any dried boletus you may have. Leccinum make a rich, dark version.