THS CWT MUSHROOMSOUP 2017 12 21

Hey, everybody

Chef Trevor here, Chef de Partie of Benchmark Restaurant at the Canadian Food and Wine Institute

And we're here at Winekeller Restaurant making creamless cream of mushroom soup

So let's get started cooking with Trevor. So today, we are making creamless mushroom soup

And to avoid all the butter and all the cream from this soup, we're going to be using olive oil and cashew milk

as the cream and oil agents in our soup. So we're removing all dairy today

And we're also keeping it gluten-free by thickening it with tapioca flour

Now, tapioca flour is a lot like cornstarch. It behaves the same way

But the only downfall is, if you use a little too much, you end up with a weird, slimy texture

So you always want to make sure you're measuring your tapioca flour properly

And today, we need one tablespoon. So this soup is really easy

It's going to come together really fast. And we're all going to do it in one pot

And we're going to start by turning that pot on to a medium-high heat

And we're going to add in two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

And I'm using extra virgin here because we don't need to bring it up to a temperature to fry it

We're keeping it nice and gently warm to saute the onions. So we're going to get a really good flavor

You want to be generous here with the olive oil because when we add the mushrooms to the pan

they're going to soak it up. And we don't want the mushrooms to burn in a dry pan

So we need to have lots of lubrication in the pan when we begin. Once the oil gets nice and hot and the pan's nice and warm

we're ready to start sauteing. And we're going to start by adding one perfectly diced onion

And that goes in. And we should start to hear a sizzle right away

And we just want to start working that onion and stirring it around. And what we're looking for here is the onion

to saute and not brown. We don't want caramelization happening here. We just want it to start to go a little bit translucent

And that's going to take about five to seven minutes. During that time, you can open a nice glass of Riesling

You can sit by the pot and stir and have a little glass of wine. Or you can put your favorite song on

and just get lost in stirring. That's what I do. And if you find while you're doing your sauteing that

it's starting to kind of fry and bubble too much and you're worried about getting some brown

you're just going to simply cut back the heat a little bit

Once you notice your onion starting to go translucent, you can then add your mushrooms

Now, you need 20 ounces of cut mushrooms here. It doesn't matter what kind of mushroom you use

It's all about what flavor you enjoy. If you like shiitake mushrooms, use shiitake mushrooms

If you like portobello, use portobello. The idea is you need 20 ounces of mushrooms

Today, I'm using a mixture of cremini, oyster, shiitake, and button, as well as just a little bit of baby portobello

that I've sliced nice and thin. This is one part where I'll tell you it doesn't matter how you chop them

You chop them as thick or as thin as you like. You chop them as small as you like

It's your preference. But for me, I like a hearty mushroom soup

that I can chew on a piece of mushroom when I eat it. So I'm keeping them whole

And you just want to put all of those into your pan. And you're going to notice right off the bat

that they almost fill up the pan. And it looks really, really dry

Well, that's because as the heat affects the mushrooms, all their moisture is going to leach out

And we're actually going to see them reduce by half. And that whole process is going to take about 10 minutes

You just want to keep stirring, making sure that they all start to get coated

with a little bit of that oil so they don't stick to the bottom. And so they start to kind of release

their moisture into the pan. We are going to be using one herb today, one

we haven't worked with yet. And that herb is thyme, not thyme, T-I-M-E, thyme, T-H-Y-M-E

This is a strong herb that you always want to find in its fresh form

It's got such a beautiful fragrance. And it reminds you so much of almost walking

through the forest after a rain. Everything is really fragrant and earthy

And thyme's going to mimic that here in our mushroom soup. So all we want to do to prepare our thyme for our soup

is make sure that it's cleaned and washed when you buy it. And you just want to take these little green fronds

off the stem and add them into your soup, because that middle piece is very woody

We don't want to chop this up on a cutting board and get all that woody stem in there

So we just want to delicately kind of peel off all of those green leaves into our soup

And you're going to need 10 sprigs of thyme. So every few sprigs, you're just going

to want to give it a stir to make sure some of those mushrooms that aren't cooked

release some of their moisture. The mushrooms almost look like they're getting wet, if that makes any sense at all

And that's actually all of the mushroom liquid, or the stock of the mushroom, actually being

pulled out as they heat up. And that's what we're looking for here

So when they get to this point, after about 10 to 15 minutes, they're all sauteed

They've definitely shrunk down by half. You want to add in your bay leaf

Bay leaf is just going to be another herb element that's going to round out that flavor

And it's going to create that earthy mushroom flavor we're used to in our cream of mushroom soup

So we're just going to pop those in. And whoever gets that at the table later, you wish them all the best of luck

Or if you are having a dinner party, that was a joke in jest. You are going to take the bay leaves out

once the soup is finished. We're going to add our tapioca starch

And we just want to sprinkle that across the mushrooms. And what this is going to do is it's

going to bring a natural thickness to our mushroom soup after we add the stock

Because we don't have the cream here, we don't have the butter, we don't have the time to reduce it down and give it

a nice texture, we need to help it out with the tapioca starch. So that's what we're going to do

And we just want to kind of spread that around everything, making sure that it doesn't burn

gets everything nicely coated. And we're just going to add in our vegetable stock

And I'm using organic vegetable stock here that I've prepared myself. But you can find organic vegetable stock

in Tetra Paks in any supermarket. And we just want to give that a bit of a stir

and scrape any of those mushroom bits off the bottom of the pan

And you'll notice that that tapioca starch is almost instantly kind of thickening the water

OK, once we get to that point, we're going to add our cashew milk

Now, literally all we have to do is wait for that cashew milk to come to a simmer

And you've got beautiful, creamless mushroom soup. Now, if you're someone who likes your soup hearty

you'll stop here. You'll have lots and lots of garnish in there with a little bit of broth surrounding it

That's the way I like my soup. But if that's not your prerogative, all you're going to do is add one more tablespoon

of tapioca starch, one more cup of vegetable broth, and one more cup of cashew milk

And then you'll end up with a soup that's more broth ratio to garnish ratio

And that's completely your prerogative. Once your soup has come to a simmer

we are ready to turn it off. Using a spoon, we're just going to taste that broth

Check it for salt and pepper and sweetness and really meaty mushroom flavor

I'm going to add just a little bit more salt. Because I love it, a touch of white pepper

Completely optional, completely up to you. You season how you want to season

Using a clean spoon, we're going to taste one more time. And your mushroom soup is ready to serve

in less than 20 minutes. And all we do to serve is first we

want to remove those bay leaves that gave us that awesome foresty flavor

They've done all they can do for us. The heat of the liquid has extracted their flavor

and it's penetrated through the soup. And now all we want to do is using a ladle

get some of those mushrooms right into our bowl. And you want some of that broth

And to finish our soup, I've got just a little bit of green onion here, right there in the middle

just for a little bit of freshness and one nice little swig of extra virgin olive oil

There you have it. Gluten-free, dairy-free mushroom soup made with wild mushrooms and fresh scallion. Enjoy