Wild Mushroom Soup with Madeira

I love mushrooms of all kinds and look forward to the fall cooking season and making various mushroom soups. This is a perfectly acceptable version which my husband liked better than I did. I prefer the version I recently made from the Les Halles cookbook although both versions are quite similar. I suspect that the difference was more a matter of the mushrooms I used (today's were newly purchased and I read somewhere that mushrooms that have been hanging around the fridge a while have more flavor) than a real difference in the recipes).

Note: I did end up using 2 onions rather than the combination of onions and leeks called for in the recipe because I forgot to pick up leeks at the store today.

Both this soup and the Les Halles version pair really well with a red wine.

This is a rich, very mushroomy soup with dairy being optional (in the form of creme fraiche added as a garnish) is a nice feature. The leeks and onion add great flavor without standing out. My Mom cooked this for me in 1993 and I found it just as delicious this time. I never just have dried Morels around and find it tastes good with whatever I have tried - porcini or mixed wild mushrooms. I am enjoying my new immersion blender to puree soups like this one. I think it would be even better with sauteed mushrooms added at the end for a little textural diversity. 3/23/2020. Great use of our dried morels. Found the soup a little thick and difficult with the immersion blender, could have used 1 cup additional liquid. Great plain with homemade Focaccia.