13 February 2007

Mushroom soup/pâté

zuppa di funghi

Well, I love mushrooms, any and all kind! As I live in Italy, in autumn is quite normal to find fresh porcini at the market, altogether with many other wood mushrooms. Of course the most widespread mushrooms that you can find everywhere, all year long, are champignon. And as we produce so good dried porcini, the most simple way to have a porcini taste even when porcini are not available, is to mix champignon with some dried porcini. And so I did for this soup.

2 celery stalks
1 carrot
1 onion
30 g of dried porcini, soaked in hot water for 30 minutes (do not throw away the water)
500 g of champignon
3 potatoes
2 tablespoon of extravirign olive oil
1 glass of Marsala wine or Porto wine
Thyme

Clean and slice the champignon. Pell the potatoes and cut them in chunks.
Clean and mince celery, carrot and onion. Stir fry them in the oil. Add the drained porcini, then the sliced champignon and the potatoes. Add the Marsala, the drained water form the porcini, the thyme and cook for 30-40 minutes, until the potatoes are tender.
Serve it straight away (upper pic) or blend it (like under here) to make an interesting pâté for your appetizers!!!

Vellutata di funghi