Wild Mushroom Soup

Wild Mushroom Soup Wild Mushrooms, roasted fennel and chestnuts are amazing flavor combination and better yet they make a delicious soup which is going to be a great starter to your holiday extravaganza. And the best thing about it, we got some simple ingredients and some simple techniques and we are going to bang it out. Alright, so I’ve got here is a big pot and we’re going to crank onto high until the whole things start to warm up. Then what we’re going to do is we’re going to use two different kinds of cooking fats. Now, we’re going to take a little bit of butter about two or maybe two and half tablespoons drop it right on the bottom of the pot, alright. Then we’re going to add a little bit of extra virgin olive oil to that too. I like the flavor combinations, it’s really nice. Alright, so we got those going. Let that start to warm up. Now into the pot, we’re going to add some base flavors. I’ve got one onion. Then we’re going to simply just going to mince up and I have also got a couple cloves of garlic. And what we’re going to do is we’re going chop up the onion and we’re going to smash off the garlic and the whole things can go in the pot. We got all these chopped up, it’s going right into the pot but this start to sauté and sizzle to snap crack on the pot. And what we’re looking for is for the onions to actually become translucent and nice and sweet. We’re not looking for a whole lot of color. And I just want to put but some of the moisture evaporate with the sugar condense, so we have got really great base. Now, we’ll soak all together. Okay. Now, let’s talk about the main star of the show here for a soup because we got some great ingredients. First of all, we got some wild mushrooms, right? Now, these are mushrooms that we picked up in the store and they are not actually wild. They are cultivated like different parts of the world, sometimes it’s Pennsylvania and sometimes it’s Oregon. They are always really delicious and they are great this time of year because they’re very hearty, very earthy. Now, what we have in here, mushroom are chopped up, we also have also some oyster mushrooms and we also have some mushroom which are really great. Now, you can use all of these or some of this or one of this, whatever you get your hands on. The mushroom flavor is still going to be the same. We’re going to use this. We’ve also got some chestnuts and now these are canned chestnuts because sometimes actually roasting the whole chestnuts can be a bit of a hassle especially if you’re going to shell this many. I’ve got a pound of mushrooms and I’ve got a pound of canned chestnuts which are going to be great for the base of the soup. For couple of things, they are nice and sweet. They are also going to help thicken up the soup a little bit when they are done. Then we also have some beautiful roasted fennel, alright. Now, this is such a great flavor, right. So, I have got two heads of fennel which are chopped up and what we’re going to do is going to take them out now. They’ve been soaking a little bit of extra virgin olive oil. I’m going to take one big huge piece, maybe three pieces. The other half of it, you’re going to save and chop up for garnish here in the soup, the three heads of a fennel, alright. They are chopped in half in about a cup of olive oil. You would put them in the oven of 300 degrees and just going let them slow roast. We’re going to fall apart and they smell like olive oil and a really delicious. Okay. So, we’ve got the base going there and the whole kitchen smells phenomenal, alright. And there’s nothing better than delicious bowl of soup, alright. So, we’re going to start off for the mushrooms, put these guys in and they’ll start to cook. And immediately they’re going to pick up all these delicious aromas and flavors and the onions and the garlic. Then we’re going to drop our chestnuts in to start to cook, then with our fennel, it’s a little warm, I’m going to just split them in big spears and cut the spears in half. And just take these big pieces and just drop them in. Now, this flavor combination of fennel, if you’ve never used it before, it’s really delicious. It has a slight and nice flavor to it but it’s so hardy, it’s so fantastic. I love it in the winter, it’s just really nice. I chopped the fennel in, alright. Another good flavor if you can’t find fennel. I will try cabbage. I think that would be a really nice flavor combination of these guys as well. Just drop the fennel in and we’ll take our spoon, we’re just going stir all these together. Make sure we stir it from the bottom to the top. Make sure we get all the olive oil and the butter and the onions, all well incorporated. Now, we’re also going to add some herbs to this. I always keep it simple. I like fresh thyme and it’s really nice. I’ve also got some of the fennel—which are the big sort of leafy green part that comes of at the top of the fennel and I’ve saved that because I'm going to use that as a garnish for the end of the soup. I'm going to take a couple of stocks of fresh thyme and just pull the leaves off. And it is very simple. If you’ve never done before, clean fresh herbs, a piece of cake but what we’re going to do is just take the stem, alright. It’s going to hold it backwards and all the leaves are just going to fall right off in your fingers. We got about three sprigs of fresh thyme where all the great leaves are off the stock just like that, drop it right in. And we get one more good stir. It smells great already then what we’re going to do is we’re going to add some chicken stock to this, alright. I’ve got some box of chicken broth, makes you grab the low sodium because you don’t want it to be salty. We’re just going to cover it up and as the whole thing start to simmer, the mushrooms are already pretty soft, the fennels are already cooked and the chestnuts are already cooked. So, it’s not going to take very long. It just probably take maybe like 12 minutes just a piece of cake recipe, it’s really nice and the flavor combination it’s like a four-star restaurant. Alright, we’re going to take this whole thing. We’re going to slide it over to the end. I’ve got ones have been cooking already right here. Okay. And I’m going to drop the temperature down just a little bit. The flavor smells really intense. What we’re going to do is we’re going to take an immersion blender. And this is a really great tool. If you’re out kitchen shopping and you want a great new Gizmo, this is something you want to grab definitely because it actually allows you to take the blender to the hot soup for just taking the hot soup into the blender which is a little safer and also these things are cool. So, we’ll take something, we’ll drop it in. And this is going to put the whole thing through. It takes like maybe less than a minute and we’re going to have a beautiful silky smooth soup. These are just so great. And you can use them for just about anything. If you want to make a really delicious tomato sauce, there is a lot of great things to do in a immersion blender. It is something that I have had in my kitchen for very long time. So, what we’re going to do is we clean up just a little bit. We got the soup ready to go. I’m going to finish up the seasoning. I will add a little bit heavy cream just to enrich it just a little bit and totally leave it out if you’re trying to watch some calories, but it’s the holidays after all. Then we’re going to season a little bit of salt. We got some of the kosher salt and we got some fresh crack pepper. Peppers are really nice flavor with mushrooms and fennel and chestnuts, great flavor combination. So, this whole thing together and ladies and gentlemen that is absolutely yet. Now, we’re going to take some of our fennel. I'm just going to bottom our roasted pan here. And I’m just going to take one piece, pan is still a little hot, take one piece out here. I’m going to drop it. I’m going chop this up for garnish. So, you get some nice little bits of roasted fennel right on top of the soap. I'm just going to go through with the knife. I’m just going to chop up some small little spoon size pieces. They’re going to fall apart just like that. And ladies and gentleman, we got a soup bowl and. We got a nice big ladle and who wouldn’t love dance with the dinner bowl especially if they’re nice soup like this. Check it out, creamy wild mushroom, chestnut and roasted fennel soup. Look at that. And I'm just going to garnish it off with couple of pieces of our roasted fennel, a little bit of texture, something to dig out right in the bottom, alright. Then we’re going to our herbs and I got a little fennel and that’s a kind of leafy top. It’s going to look like dill. It’s not dill, it’s fennel. I'm just going to put that right on top, little drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and you’ve got an amazing soup. And you’re absolutely going to love it.