Cream of Mushroom

This is a recipe I first tried a few years ago after Ina Garten made it on her show "The Barefoot Contessa".  I thought I had posted about it before but apparently I never did. This is a bit more labor intensive recipe than most I make regularly but it is worth it. The time is in both the ingredient prep and in the cooking so be prepared to devote a couple of hours at least on this recipe. You'll need two pots or pans, one large sauce pan for the stock and one large stock pot.

This recipe delivers a good amount of calories so this should be a planned indulgence. I double up on the amount of mushrooms than what is called for below because I love them and because I like a soup chock full of its star ingredient like clams in clam chowder and meatballs in Albondigas. Another different take I sometimes apply is to keep the vegetables used to make the stock and add them to the soup, I hate the thought of just tossing them and they add some additional chunkiness to the soup.

The recipe also calls for cleaning the mushrooms by individually wiping them with a dry paper towel or  using a mushroom brush. The reason for not washing mushrooms is they absorb water rather quickly and act like sponges. I use a lot of mushrooms in this recipe and cleaning them one by one is tedious so I checked out some info on the web about this and the other school of thought is that if you don't soak the mushrooms but rather quickly rinse them you don't run much risk of ruining your mushrooms. Geez, what is NOT answered on the internet?

INGREDIENTS
5 ounces of fresh shitake mushrooms
5 ounces of fresh portobello mushrooms
5 ounces of fresh cremini or porcini mushrooms
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 stick of butter, divided
1 cup of chopped yellow onion
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
1 sprig of thyme plus 1 teaspoon minced thyme leaves, divided
Kosher salt
Black pepper
2 cups of chopped leeks, white and light green parts, about 2 leeks (my regular store sells them in bunches of three so I just used the third one too, I also cut each leek in half length wise and then fully rinse them otherwise there always seems to be left over dirt)
1/4 cup of flour
1 cup of dry white wine
1 cup of half & half
1 cup of heavy cream
1/2 cup of minced cilantro

METHOD

1. Clean the mushrooms (dry method or wet, don't soak)
2. Remove the stems
3. Trims any dry parts from the stems, discard dry parts, coarsely chop the good parts, and set aside for use to make the broth
4. Slice the mushrooms into pieces large enough to be a good bite but small enough to fit on a soup spoon

Stock

1. Heat the olive oil and 1 tablespoon of the butter in a large sauce pan
2. Add the mushroom stems, onion, carrots, thyme sprig, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1/2 teaspoon of pepper
3. Cook over medium to low heat for about 15 minutes, until the carrots are just getting soft
4. Add 6 cups of water, bring to a boil and simmer uncovered for 30 minutes
5. At this point you can either strain the liquid and reserve it or don't strain it and reserve it.

Meanwhile...

1. In the large stock pot, heat the rest of the butter and add the leeks
2. Cook over low heat for 15-20 minutes until the leeks begin to brown
3. Add the sliced mushroom caps and cook for 10 minutes or until they are browned and tender (don't fret if the mushrooms seem to be too much for the pot, they'll reduce pretty quickly)
4. Add the flour and cook for 1 minute
5. Add the white wine and stir for another minute, scraping the bottom of pot getting any fond loose
6. Add the mushroom stock (with or without the veggies), minced thyme leaves, 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt, and 1 teaspoon of pepper
7. Bring to a boil
8. Reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes
9. Add the half & half, cream, cilantro
10. Season to taste with salt and pepper
11. Heat through without boiling
12. Serve and enjoy