Okay, so! I went with a box of vegetable broth and some miso paste that my mom conveniently had left over from another recipe; I have absolutely no idea how porklike it is, but the zzoup is tasty enough. I wanted to be lore-accurate, but also chanterelles are absurdly expensive, so I used some dried chanterelles and some of a mix consisting of chanterelle, porcini, oyster, and shiitake. All of that worked out fine, but, delicious friends, I have to ask…
Did this recipe genuinely mean 9 ounces of dried mushrooms, or should it have been 9 ounces of reconstituted dried mushrooms? Because this is not 2–3 servings!
Seriously, this is either a very thick zzoup or a hearty zzludge (not that I mind a good sludge), and I tripled the seasonings (partly because the broth was low-sodium, but still) and it’s still nowhere close to red. Is this how it’s meant to be? Because it does not look like the photo.
Add a couple of eggs or some egg replacer to that, and you can make paté! Or freeze most of it in portions and reconstitute with mushroom stock from Kallo and a splash of (vegan or coconut) cream.
I make mushroom soup using half a pound or a pound of fresh, a single large potato and a tiny handful of dried porcini or shiitake (9 maybe?), soaked for a couple of hours in advance.
Keep us posted…
(I find myself reminded of PTerry’s description of the River Ankh. )
We concluded correctly! It may not be part of the recipe as described in the game, but the zzoup is all the better for a bit of sherry and some grains of paradise. (Pepper would also have worked, but I figured the aromatic quality would go with the roses, plus there’s an appealing irony to grains of paradise in an infernal recipe.)
Don’t be disheartened about this experiment, I hope at least the food was tasty and worth the effort in the end : ). And keep us posted if you ever attempt zzoup again, I love this thread.
Hi! I’m the thread OP and I have to confess, I did put an error in the recipe - it was 9oz of reconstituted mushrooms, not of dried. Very sorry about accidentally leading you to sludge.
I KNEW IT! Fortunately, it is a tasty sludge. (Not a cost-effective one, though.) I’ll give it another try once I’ve eaten my way through this batch.
Do you think it’d work with fresh chanterelles? Not that that’s cheap either, but with the much more reasonable quantity, I could manage it on occasion.
So it looks like the correct amount of dried mushrooms should be more like 45–50 g (around 1 2/3–1 3/4 oz). Much more rational.
Another question, while I’m at it, though not one with quite such drastic consequences: 1 liter isn’t equivalent to 1.5 pints, it’s actually slightly over 2 pints. How much stock do I want, 1.5 pints or 2 pints?
Personally I’d say go with more stock over less - I’m a Brit so our measurements get weird when cooking, we use both imperial and metric but for different things, hence the likely confusion (plus this was a few years back!).
As for chanterelles - I suspect it would work just fine, albeit with a different overall flavour. I went with porcini because it was what was available to me at the time, but they’re quite a strong flavour. I suspect chanterelle would be lighter, maybe nuttier?
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