The Grape's Mushroom Soup Recipe

melissa-dallas

Well-known member
A beloved restaurant of many years in Dallas, The Grape, is closing. Here is their most requested recipe - a wonderful mushroom soup.

Ingredients:

2-1/2 lbs button mushrooms, washed and chopped (It’s easy to do in a food processor.)

1 large onion, diced small

2 cloves garlic, crushed and minced

1 dry bay leaf

1 sprig fresh thyme

1/4 cup dry sherry (optional)

1/2 lb unsalted butter (2 sticks)

1 cup all-purpose flour

3 quarts beef broth or stock, or the equivalent made with beef bouillon cubes

2 cups heavy cream

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

In a heavy-bottomed, 8-quart stock or soup pot, melt the butter over low heat. Add the onion, garlic, bay leaf and thyme. Cook until translucent.

Add the chopped mushrooms and cook until most of the water comes out of them. Add the sherry, if you like, and reduce by half.

Add the flour and stir well to avoid lumps. If you do get some, it’s OK. They can be pureed out later.

Slowly whisk in the broth or stock and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat.

Continue to stir the soup, or the bottom may scorch. When the soup comes to a boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes uncovered, stirring occasionally.

Finish by adding the heavy cream and nutmeg. Add salt and pepper to taste. Remove the thyme and bay leaf. Puree the soup in a blender or with a hand-held blender.

Notes: Makes 16 servings. The recipe may be cut in half, but it is worth making the whole batch because it freezes so well.

 
This sounds delicious. I've made versions of mushroom soup before, including...

...Cook's Illustrated's recipe. This one is what I think of when I get a bowl in a restaurant: butter and heavy cream.

Thanks!

Michael

 
I'm in favour of heavy cream and anything. There is a way that I make a mushroom soup with a lamb

leg bone. I had one, with little bits of roasted meat left on it and just tried making a soup with it. I added cold water to the bone, a little diced onion (that I didn't even saute first) and a huge whack of chopped fresh dill. Then lots and lots of diced mushroom. I just cooked it all on low for a while. It was so delicious it became one of my husband's favourite soups.

 
Our supermarket (Kroger) has lamb most of the year, but it is from Australia. I took...

...the advice from CI and found American-raised lamb to be much milder.

The strong taste of Australian lamb isn't a problem for me, but wifey doesn't care for it.

Michael

 
I think it's a flavour that is altered greatly by region and the farmers. Where I live, we get lots

of local lamb which I don't care for. I prefer the old NZ lamb but much of that has become Halal and although the stores here originally would not buy it, they have caved.

I have just stopped eating it altogether now. And one of my dinner companions won't eat baby animals so ......... there we go.

 
A Lebanese market close to where I work has a really good Halal

butcher/meat department and they have good beautiful tiny t-bone lamb chops, but I would have to take out a loan to buy a leg of lamb there.

 
Back
Top