I know a Frenchman who has lived in Beijing for many years. He went to China to study in college and spoke Mandarin. After graduating, he opened a company in Beijing, and in the past few years, he has traveled through the streets and alleys of Beijing and the great rivers and mountains of China, and is familiar with the local customs and food culture of all parts of China. A clear-eyed person knows at a glance that he is a Chinese expert.
From Sichuan hot pot to Beijing's bean juice marinade, he did not refuse to come, but in Chinese food, he had two things that he could not accept, one was China's thin porridge, and the other was Chinese soup. White rice porridge originally had no taste, and Crooked Nuts felt that it was different from the various boiled cereals I liked, and I could understand it. But China's soup culture is broad and profound, from home-style tomato egg soup to various soup pots in Guangdong, when entertaining guests, even the simplest meals should be called "four dishes and one soup" specifications, which shows the importance of soup in Chinese cuisine, why can't he understand it?
Under my questioning, the French boy told the truth. Because Chinese soup is so different from French soup. The soup in Chinese food is mainly clear soup, and great attention is paid to the umami taste of the soup itself, and the main role is to accompany the meal. But in Western food, soup comes in the form of a dish. In a serious Western meal, after eating appetizers and salads, various soups are served in a deep soup plate. Westerners are very fond of drinking all kinds of thick soup, a spoonful down, the soup is semi-solid, with bread to eat, basically can eat a half full, even in western food without cream clear soup series, the meat dishes in the soup are also readily available, French onion soup, Italian vegetable dishes, Russian borscht, are added without adding price rhythm. Accustomed to eating Western soups, it is indeed difficult to accept for a while in the face of the clear soup of Chinese cuisine.
In fact, in my opinion, the soups of Chinese and Western food have their own advantages, and they are inseparable. I love drinking lotus root duck soup and old Beijing's sour and spicy soup, and I am also fascinated by the combination of creamy mushroom soup and mushroom umami. It used to be a must-order food for my restaurant to eat. Until my French friend taught me the unique secret of cream mushroom soup, I began to practice at home, and I didn't think that the more I practiced, the more refined, every minute to kill "Michelin".
The main ingredient in the creamy mushroom soup is mushrooms, which do not contain meat. Just as many dishes in China require broth, to make mushroom soup delicious, you need to base it with chicken broth that has filtered through the grease. So stewing a pot of fragrant chicken soup is the first task to be completed. The French cream mushroom soup uses white mushrooms, which are rounded in texture and delicate in flesh with no odor. There are also friends who have tried to use other kinds of mushrooms to make this soup, anyway, with white mushrooms can never be wrong, how other kinds of mushrooms taste, only try to know.
Cut the mushroom into small pieces. Cut the onion and garlic into small cubes. Make a pan with butter, sauté the onion and garlic until fragrant and make it transparent, then remove the mushrooms from the pan and sauté over medium heat. After the mushroom is cooked, the color will turn light gray, and some moisture will come out, until the texture of the mushroom becomes very soft, indicating that it is cooked. Now, add the filtered chicken broth to the pot, boil it and then turn the heat to low for ten minutes, optionally put some minced black pepper, pizza grass, French coriander, thyme and other Western spices, if you don't have it at home, you can also leave it.
The next step is to crush the cooked mushroom soup in a blender and then put it back in the pan to continue cooking, at which point milk and salt can be added to taste. Find another pan and melt the next large piece of butter. Put two tablespoons of flour in the melted butter, fry the flour, the flour will turn golden and fragrant, then pour the flour into the mushroom soup, stir well with the sound of "stinging" until the mushroom soup becomes a thick soup and can come out of the pot. Serve the soup in a small bowl or on a deep plate, sprinkle some fresh French coriander on top, place a few slices of mushrooms, and serve the creamy mushroom soup.
In my experience, if you don't have a blender at home, you can simply omit the chopping step and cut the diced mushrooms smaller. This way of making creamy mushroom soup is easy to get started with, and it is never lost. If you like to drink soup, you may wish to change the taste, creamy mushroom soup must be your dish.