French Fridays with Dorie - Paris Mushroom Soup

I joined a new online cooking group for the New Year, called French Fridays with Dorie. The group is dedicated to Dorie Greenspan's latest book, Around My French Table: More Than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours. Dorie says this book is about one of her great loves, France and its food, and is filled with stories of French life and "recipes for the elbows-on-the-table food" that she and her friends prepare in France today. The cookbook was a gift to myself for Christmas, and I've been on a French diet ever since!

The French Fridays with Dorie group nominates and votes on the recipes they would like to cook for the following month, and the "winning" dishes are posted on the FFWD web site at the beginning of the month.  The group started cooking in October, and plans to cook their way through all the recipes. Members can pick and choose the most appealing dishes and participate when they wish (unlike The Daring Cooks and Daring Bakers, requiring participation in 10 out of 12 challenges a year to maintain good membership status). If you choose to participate and prepare a particular recipe for that week, you must post about it on that Friday.

French Fridays with Dorie rules do prohibit posting the actual recipe in our blog posts, to encourage purchase of the cookbook. However, this is truly a beautiful cookbook, full of incredible French dishes. Some recipes appear very simple, and some appear challenging, but all are approachable for the average home cook.

Before joining the group, I made the Pumpkin Gorgonzola Flan. I've also made, and thoroughly enjoyed, Creamy, Cheesy, Garlicky Rice with Spinach (very similar to risotto, but without all the stirring), and M. Jacques' Armagnac Chicken (roasted chicken with vegetables and prunes, with a lovely sauce flavored with Armagnac).

Tonight, I prepared Paris Mushroom Soup, this week's FFWD selection. When served to Dorie in one of her favorite Paris bistros, the soup bowl was brought to the table without the soup, but with a small mushroom "salad" in the bottom of the bowl. The hot soup was then poured over the salad, cooking the mushrooms just slightly. Dorie also recommends a small dollop of Crème fraiche for serving.

Soup ingredients include onions, garlic, white mushrooms,
white wine, parsley, rosemary, and chicken broth

"Salad" ingredients are sliced mushrooms, parsley, scallions, and chives

Paris Mushroom Soup takes about an hour to prepare, with chopping, sauteing, cooking, and blending. It is very rich and surprisingly creamy, without any cream in the recipe. The subtle rosemary is nice and the raw mushroom "salad" is a must for added texture, taste and presentation. We enjoyed the soup with a hunk of crusty bread and glass of white wine, and I plan on leftovers for lunch tomorrow...

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