EPISODE 6: AUTUMN

PORCINI MUSHROOM SOUP

Ingredients

500 g of porcini mushrooms
30 g of dried porcini mushrooms
1 small onion
2 cloves of garlic
100 g of bacon
1 carrot
1 large or 2 small potatoes
80 g of cooked, peeled and crushed chestnuts
2 tablespoons of lard or 2 tablespoons of olive oil and 20g of butter
Pepper
Salt
150 ml of heavy cream
3 egg yolks
juice from 1/2 lemon
fresh watercress, parsley or chives (optional)

Preparation

Cut the carrots, potatoes and bacon into small cubes and finely chop the onion and garlic. Separate the porcini mushrooms into stems and caps. Cut them into larger cubes separately, but small enough to fit into a spoon.

Make the soup stock by pouring 1.5 l of hot water over the dry porcini mushrooms and leave them for about 20 minutes before straining the soup through a fine sieve.

Sauté the onions, garlic, carrots, potatoes, bacon, crushed chestnuts and porcini mushrooms on lard (or olive oil and butter combination), let the vegetables soften. Then pour in the warm porcini stock and add diced fresh porcini cap cubes. Add salt and pepper to taste and cook everything over low heat for about 10 minutes.

Mix the egg yolks, cream and lemon juice. Add watercress, parsley or chives to this mixture. Stir it into the hot soup, immediately remove it from the stove and then gently stir for another 3-4 minutes, so that the soup cools down a bit and the yolks do not coagulate. For the same reason, this soup should not be heated, so serve it right away, hot.