During ramadan I got Julia Child‘s book ‘Mastering the Art of French Cooking’ on my laptop. I skimmed through it, and after a half an hour, I remember I felt that it was impossible to cook any of her recipes. But the amount of preciseness, attention to detail and time management she cooks with, was impossible to follow. But I thought, what the hell, I’m gonna try a recipe or two. I chose the cream of mushroom soup.

We were at the chalet, my friend went to Fahaheel and bought all the stuff needed from Sultan Center (We figured might as well pay a little extra for better ingredient, it’s french cooking afterall, Julia Child’s french cooking).

Ingredients:

• 400 grams of mushrooms.
• 1/4 minced onions. We used white onion.
• 7 table spoon butter (she’s a bit crazy with butter)
• 3 table spoon flour
• 6 cups of chick stock
• 2 parsley sprigs (kham6a zgheera parsley mga9a9 3adil)
• 1/3 bay leaf
• 1/8 t tea spoon thyme (see how annoying she is?)
• 1 tea spoon lemon juice
• 2 ego yolks
• 3/4 cup whipping cream
• Salt and Pepper to taste (chicken stock is salty so becareful)

Cook the onion with 3 tb spoons of butter, on low heat, let them get tender but not brown. 8 minutes. add the flour and stir over moderate heat. again without browning.

And then take it off the heat.

Meanwhile you’ve had your chicken stock boiling for a while. Take that boiling pit off the stove too, and throw the onion flour mix. Stir.

Add the parsley, bay leaf and thyme.

(you cut all the mushrooms to 2 parts, the lower part is separate from it cap), you throw the lower halves in the pot.

Add salt and pepper to taste and give it a nice stir. Let it simmer for over 20 minutes while skimming occasionally. When you’re done, strain it, shikhlooh, and press the mushroom stems to let all their juices out. Then return the soup to the pot.

Cut all the caps to thin slices, have a pan ready, put in 2 TB spoons of butter, throw in all the mushrooms, add salt and lemon juice. Cover and let is cook for 5 mins. Moderate heat. Julia says in her book that “add the mushroom when the butter is foaming” not before, and not after. Only when it begins to foam…

When they’re done cooking, pour them with their juices and butter into the pot with soup. Let them simmer for 10 minutes.

Have your cream ready, mix it with the 2 egg yolks.

beat, beat and beat.

Pour in your soup, slowly, gradually and keep beating.

and beat.

You’re almost done. When you beat in all the soup, return it to the pot and heat, over slow heat, don’t let it simmer, you just want to poach the eggs. And you’re done. Check the seasoning, adjust if necessary, and serve immediately.

Decorate if you’re into decorations. Obviously we aren’t big fans of final touches 🙂

If you walked in the kitchen at that moment, you would’ve seen LOTS of used pans, pots, knives, plates and all sort of kitchen wares. Julia Childs is an amazing chef, she uses all of the kitchen’s resources for many simple dishes. We couldn’t keep up most of the time. Her cooking is fast paced and hectic. The attention to details (which we skipped due to lack of time and space) was overwhelming.

End product? Great soup. Everyone loved it.

Was it worth it? If you’re into cooking, YES. If you’re not. Don’t bother! It took a lot of time and energy.. and butter!!

O Bil3afya! 😀

Thanks loco for cooking with me.

 

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 21st, 2010 at 12:49 am