Mushrooms are dirty ... and other non-fiction !

Last night I learned that when using dried mushrooms, always be careful of the sediment in the water after you've rehydrated them! I ran across this fantastic recipe on another blog: Porcini Cream Soup with Parmesan. The blog has these fantastic pictures and it looks and sounds like it is going to be incredible.

The ingredients:

20g dried Porcini *** I used my entire 1 oz package 1 large onion - finely chopped 3 tablespoons butter 2 tablespoons flour 1/8 l white wine *** I used 1/2 cup 250 g cream (I used 1 cup) 40 g Parmesan - grated *** I grated liberally;) Handful of chives - chopped Salt and pepper

The instructions she gave sounded so simple too:

In approx. 3/4 l of hot water (approx 3 cups), soak the dried Porcini for 30 minutes. Drain and reserve the liquid. Melt the butter in a large pot and sauté the onions. Sprinkle the flour over the onions and cook for a few minutes. Pour in the wine, cream and the Porcini liquid, while constantly stirring, to avoid any lumps. Add the mushrooms, bring to a boil and then simmer for 10 minutes. Take most of the mushrooms out of the soup and with an electric beater or mixer, whisk the soup until smooth and creamy. Put the Porcini mushrooms back into the soup. Salt and pepper to taste Pour into warm soup plates and sprinkle with Parmesan and chives.

Ok, so this was all well and good. I make the soup and it smells very earthy, exactly how I expected it. Steve wonders about dirt/sediment in the dried mushrooms being that he's used them much more than i have in the past, but I think he is trying not to hurt my feelings so he does not really speak up (altho he chuckles a bit later...men!!) So at the end of the simmering I get to the big taste test, before I add the salt and pepper. Holy no taste batman, I was really disappointed. So I start adding salt and pepper and we let it simmer a little longer than 10 minutes. The salt really helps to bring out the great earthy flavors and all in all I'm very very happy when we go to sit down to eat.

Except, that once we sit down the soup is sooo gritty. I'm sad to say that while the soup has great flavor, it had a ton of sediment/grit. I could not even finish it!! I'm just that numb skull that followed my directions, next time, not so much! I really want to try this soup again, but I think I'm going to have to make some changes to the recipe.

* When adding the mushroom water, ladel it in thru a cheese cloth to remove any sediment.
* After removing mushrooms from the water, run the mushrooms under water and wring to remove additional sediment in the mushroom.
* We are also thinking that we may add the salt a little earlier so that we can bring out the flavors.