Recipe by Ken Hodges
Retired, U.S. Forest Service Ranger District, Cordova
Ingredients:
- 2 cups chopped mushrooms (the type around here that is best are hedgehog mushrooms)
- 6 tablespoons butter
- 2 tablespoons flour
- 4 cups of heated half-and-half (don’t boil it, just warm it up)
- 2 chicken bouillon cubes
- *Salt and pepper to taste
- *Dash of sherry
Take four tablespoons of the butter and melt in a saucepan, and sauté the mushrooms for about 10 minutes until they are soft and cooked. Set them aside. In a different saucepan melt the remaining two tablespoons of butter, then add the flour and stir it around until the butter is soaked up and bubbles, (don’t let it brown much, just enough until it smells like bread). Once you’ve made a nice roux, gradually add the warmed half-and-half and whisk it until it is blended into a thick soup. Add the bouillon cubes and then heat this mixture until slightly thickened; then add the mushrooms and bring the soup up to eating temperature. Next, season to your liking and then add a dash of sherry at the end over the top of the soup right before you eat it.
“The emphasis in this recipe is on the wild, hedgehog mushrooms, which have a natural sweetness that comes out with the soup,” Hodges said. “Cordova has many hedgehogs and they’re easy to find and identify, once you know what you’re looking for. The hedgehog is one mushroom to know. It is easy not to confuse it with others and you won’t poison yourself.”
Valuable information, indeed.
