Truffles Part 5: Cream of Mushroom soup with creme fraiche and truffles

Tags

appetizer, black truffle, brown mushrooms, cream, cream of mushroom soup, creme fraiche, dinner, hand blender, mushroom, mushroom soup, Soup, starter, truffles, western, white truffle oil

I love mushroom soup. Even though I’ve been eating canned Campbell mushroom soup for most of my life, nothing beats freshly made cream of mushroom soup. I attempted it for the first time as part of my truffle menu and used portobello and those nice swiss brown mushrooms. Other recipes call for er… wilder varieties of mushroom but since its just me and my helper, I decided to just use mushrooms that I’m used to. The end result should be a creamy thick soup of mushrooms and enhanced just by some chopped parsley, truffle shavings and perhaps a drop or two of truffle oil.

Ingredients (Serves 4)

100g butter

500g mushrooms (I used 250g portobello and 250g swiss brown mushrooms)

350ml chicken stock

400ml water

100g cooking cream

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tbsp of creme fraiche per bowl of soup (you can adjust this if you like)

Fresh truffle shavings

1 tsp chopped English parsley per bowl

Salt and black pepper for seasoning

Instructions

1. Wash the mushrooms thoroughly and drain.

2. Slice the mushrooms to the same thickness (otherwise you’ll get inconsistencies in texture after blending)

3. Melt the butter in a sauce pan large enough to hold 2 litres of water. I used a wok as I’m more comfortable with it.

4. Fry the garlic and mushrooms together for 5 minutes. The mushrooms will release some liquid.

5. Add chicken stock and water and bring to the boil before turning down the heat. Cover with the lid and let it stew for about 30 minutes.

6. Add the cream and let it simmer for another 3-5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

7. Blitz the soup with a hand blender. Be careful when you do this as you don’t want the hot liquid to fly all over the kitchen and onto you! 

I transferred the mixture into a mixing jug for blitzing.

8. Blitz until your desired consistency. I like mine slightly chunky

9. Ladle into soup bowl and top with creme fraiche, truffle shavings, parsley and a little white truffle oil if you like.

Serve with bread! 

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Truffle Part 2: Roast chicken with black truffles

Tags

black truffles, easy meals, roast, roast chicken, roast chicken quarters, roast chicken with truffles, thyme, truffle oil, white truffle oil

Part 2 of the truffle series! An easy recipe, the truffles went amazingly well with roast chicken and the meat was succulent and tender. Got this idea from the wine dinner at St. Regis, but since their method of cooking chicken was beyond me I decided to just make roast chicken. And its pretty easy, just marinade the chicken and dump it into the oven. Half an hour later you get a good dinner, easy peasy.

Ingredients (Serves 4)

Black truffle shavings

4 Chicken quarters (bone in and skin on)

Sprigs of thyme

1 tbsp White truffle oil

Salt and black pepper

Instructions

1. Marinate the chicken thighs well in white truffle oil, thyme salt and pepper for about half an hour at room temperature. Make sure your chicken is at room temperature before roasting it.

2. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.

3. Insert 3-4 black truffle shavings under the skin of each chicken quarter.

4. Oil the baking tray slightly before placing each chicken piece skin side down on the tray surface. Arrange the thyme springs over the chicken.

5. Roast the chicken skin side down for about 15 minutes.

6. Flip the chicken over and roast for another 15-20 minutes until the skin turns golden brown and crispy.

7. Remove the sprigs of thyme.

8. Arrange on plate and top with fresh sprigs of thyme and black truffle shavings if you wish.

The crispy skin is amazing with the black truffle! 

Serve with truffled mash potatoes or roasted vegetables at the side.

Truffles Part 1 – Carpaccio with trio of truffles

Tags

black truffle, black winter truffle, canned truffles, carpaccio, carpaccio with trio of truffles, carpaccio with truffles, fusion, sashimi, starter, tai, truffle oil, truffles, white truffle oil

So I decided to indulge in my newfound love for truffles. I ordered two black winter truffles and it arrived today! Super excited. Its now stored in rice in my fridge, and accordingly I placed eggs in the same container just to maximize the use of the truffles. My fridge smells like truffles now mmmm.

This is a dish I had at Aoki, a japanese restaurant in Singapore, and its pretty easy to replicate. It is also foolproof and perfect as a starter. The chopped canned truffle adds a little bite to the dish and the fleur de sel not only makes the dish look aesthetically pleasing, it also gives a briny crunch to the fish that, on many levels, is so different from your ordinary table salt.

Will be putting up several truffle-themed posts, this is just the first 😉

They’re pretty big aren’t they?

Ingredients

1 tbsp Truffle oil

Tai (sea bream) sashimi grade sliced thinly

Fleur de sel

1 summer black truffle from a jar

Generous shavings from a fresh black winter truffle

Instructions

1) Chop up your summer truffle into little chunks. Don’t mince it too finely as we want some texture to this dish.

2) Arrange the fish on the plate

3) Sprinkle the chopped truffle on top of the fish and drizzle the truffle oil.

4) Add shavings of black winter truffle on top and season with fleur de sel.

Enjoy the heady rush of truffle!