Cream of Mushroom Soup; Chefchaouen, the blue city

Cream of Mushroom Soup with Sherry.

It’s the sherry that is the finishing touch for me. It adds that interesting flavor that makes it just a bit better.

The problem, for me, is the sherry.

Our good friend, who lived in Spain, died 2 years ago. We miss him…. We miss the long discussions, the long walks with all the dogs, the fun cooking together in his kitchen…..

And now I realize that I miss the shopping we did. We always stocked up on Spanish olive oil, Spanish wine and sherry.

I can find good olive oil here in France, albeit more expensive.

Obviously finding good wine in France is not an issue (although I prefer Spanish rosados to French rosés) but I cannot find sherry.

We both like sherry to sip before dinner on a cold, winter’s evening…. But I really like it to cook with.

So, when I used the last of my stash the other day, I did what I always do…. Looked online for sherry distributors.

My order should be here this week.

The best news is they also sell my favorite rosado !

Last month I posted a recipe for a hearty Chicken Mushroom Chowder.

It’s still mushroom season….

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Cream of Mushroom Soup

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This is a light soup, for a first course or light lunch. 
If you want to use it as a sauce simply add less of the stock when you purée it.

• Author: Katie Zeller
• Prep Time: 10 minutes
• Cook Time: 10 minutes
• Total Time: 20 minutes
• Yield: 2 servings 1x
• Category: Soup

Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• 6oz (180gr) forest mushrooms try for a mix, forest and/or cultivated, cleaned, chopped
• 1 medium leek, 1 1/2 ” (3.5cm) in diameter, thinly sliced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 2 tsp butter
• 2 cups (16oz, 480ml) chicken stock
• 1/2 cup (4oz, 120ml) milk or cream
• 2 tbs dry sherry
• 2 tsp dried thyme
• 2 tsp dried parsley 
• 1 tsp truffle or good olive oil

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Instructions

• Heat butter in medium saucepan. Add leeks, garlic and mushrooms and sauté for 8 – 10 minutes. 
• Add stock, herbs, cover and heat through. 
• When soup is done put solids in blender. Add enough of the broth to purée easily. I used all but 1/3 cup of the stock.
• Add milk and sherry. 
• Check consistency and add more stock if needed. 
• Gently heat just until soup is hot. 
• Ladle into bowl, drizzle with a bit of truffle or good olive oil and serve.

Notes

Truffle oil is nice, but a good olive oil or walnut oil would be good, too. Or skip it.
A variety of mushrooms will give the most flavor.

Keywords: mushroom soup, first course soup

Blue is my favorite color.

I liked this ville…. Chefchaouen; aka: the blue city.

You can see why.

It’s really hard to keep walking and not take a photo of every house and street.

There were other colors available – here a shot of the paint store.

I have no idea what they mix the powders with but we saw several stores with the same colors on offer. I didn’t see any but blue used however…..

There are several theories as to why they paint the city blue. One is that the color / paint keeps the mosquitoes away. Another is that it was done 50 years ago to attract tourists.

If the latter is true it worked.

This city made me happy.