Carrot - Mushroom Soup

I've already extolled the virtues of soup in a previous post, so I won't bore you again - but this delicate, original soup deserves all the praise you can imagine. A fairly traditional French recipe combines carrots and ordinary white mushrooms for a quick, easy weeknight meal, but I spiced it up with wild mushrooms and a nut-infused cream garnish.

I'm a big fan of mushrooms. Years ago, all of the south of France was covered in oak forests; unfortunately, wildfires during the dry summer months have wiped out most of them. The ones that remain are havens for nature's tastiest fungi - girolles (called golden chanterelles in English), cèpes, sanguins, morilles, and more. After the fall rains pass through the region, you can literally smell mushrooms in the air: nutty and rich, the scent just makes me itch to cook some delectable mushroom-based dish. The wild mushroom season doesn't last long, so it's important to make the most of it while it lasts.

My last trip to the market, I came home with perhaps a third of a pound of golden chanterelles. These are some of the most delicious mushrooms out there: yellow-orange in color, with a nutty flavor slightly reminiscent of apricot. Chanterelles are versatile little things: they're perfect in cream sauces for white meat, but also delicious sautéed with parsley and butter as a side dish. We were having friends over for dinner and serving beef as the main course, so I thought that a warm mushroom soup would be the perfect start to the meal. You could also serve this as a main dish for a light dinner.

The garnish is, like most garnishes, optional. But I highly recommend it. If you think that nut vinegar seems exotic and that you'll never use it again, change your mind. It's perfect in salad dressings and pasta sauces, and I'll make an extra effort to include it in future recipes I post. Deal?

Carrot-Mushroom Soup

Serves 6

1 onion, cut into cubes

3 carrots, peeled and cut into cubes

2 potatoes, peeled and cut into cubes

olive oil

cube of chicken or vegetable bouillon

2 handfuls of wild mushrooms, preferably golden chanterelles

butter

parsley

salt, pepper

for the garnish:

4 tablespoons whipping cream

nut vinegar

In a large pot, sauté the onion, carrots and potatoes with olive oil until the onion is translucent. Pour in enough water just to cover the vegetables and add the bouillon cube. Cover and let cook over medium-low heat for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, thoroughly wash the mushrooms (but don't let them soak in water! they will absorb it all and lose their flavor) and dry them. Sautée them for 3-4 minutes in a separate frying pan with a bit of butter, adding parsley, salt and pepper to taste.

At the end of the 20 minutes, add the mushrooms to the vegetables and broth and mix until smooth with a hand mixer.

For the garnish, place the cream into a small bowl and add just a few drops of nut vinegar. Whip with a whisk for a few moments - you want the cream to be light, but not whipped cream. Taste and verify the quantity of vinegar.

Serve the soup in individual cups or bowls with a small spoonful of cream. Bon appetit!