pasithea: glowing girl (Default)
pasithea ([personal profile] pasithea) wrote2009-12-09 10:32 am

Mmmmmushroom chowder

This cold weather has been a good excuse to eat some of the mushrooms I collected and dried. Monday night we had a really excellent creamy mushroom-leek-potato soup that starred blewits, honey mushrooms, boletus, and chicken of the woods.

Put the dry mushrooms in a pot of water and turned on the heat. While they were rehydrating/warming up, I sauteed the leeks in butter and chopped up some potatoes. After about 5 minutes, potatoes go into the pot. About 5 minutes more than the leeks and some cream (Well, a mix of lowfat milk and powdered milk that I pretend is cream) went in. Let that simmer a bit, then added salt, pepper, and a dash of ground thyme.

The flavor, texture, and color were truly excellent. I'm pretty good at chowders to start with and the interplay of the various mushrooms made it taste really rich. I'm quite happy with the results. :)

Of course, drying takes the sharpness out of the color of both blewits (purple) and chicken of the woods (orange) but perhaps it's just as well. With the bright green of the leek as well, the appearance of the soup might have been a little disconcerting otherwise. Though I did have the passing fancy of a chowder peppered with bright green, orange, and lavender colors. :) Ohwell. Have to try from fresh next time, I suppose. :)