The Culinary Dialogues

I love Craigslist. I wouldn't have ever thought I'd be finding recipes through it. Here is the Recipe in SewerMan's very own words. (for once I asked permission). We first started emailing about breaking into sewers, and then, naturally, the conversation went to cooking. He used to cook at a restaurant in Washington and he mentioned a popular mushroom soup he'd made. So I asked him about the recipe.


Pretty much like this though...

Throw equal portions of cream/water (if you are using water use less water)
and sauteed morels, criminis or portabells or a combination of the three
(but heavy on the portabella for it's richness) in a pot and boil the shit
out of it for about 3 hours if you are needing something fast 24 if you want
a more soup-like outcome, 3 hours will provide excellent stew. Anyhow, boil
the shit out of the cream, mushroom, spices of your choice(noice), diced
carrot, diced celery, aromatics (diced and membraneless as possible, I like
a combination of red onion, red pepper, green pepper and the smallest smount
of habanero for color the combination of them makes great color) then when
the cream/water/carrot/mushroom reduction is thicker than hell, not stew
thick but enough to make a "slop" sound when you drop it into the bowl or
pan you take a bunch of diced mushrooms and maybe a can of guiness beer and
pour it in there. Voila. Soup that earns tips hahah.

for a 24 hour batch follow the same method except do it slow and for at
least 24 hours. The longer you reduce the better it will taste.

Here is exactly how I would do it.

Get a N gallon pot that will serve N people (where N people represents any
number of people N or yourself) sautee the hell out of the mushrooms with a
bunch of garlic, basil, marjoram, dill (right at the end the basil will
overpower it if you are using that shitty dried stuff) put some pepper in it
too. Add your cream/water mixture. I like cream because it is richer and
more flavorful, however if you are going to use water dont worry this is a
24 hour method. Use water at first until you have a really strong reduction.
After about 18 hours OF ONLY WATER  (make sure to keep adding water as it
boils off) let it start boiling down, not too far down to where you only
have a tablespoon of your reduction left. When it is boiled down enough to
make bowls for your N guests add the cream and guiness beer, keep it on low
heat. Add all your other shit too, carrots, aromatics, whatever else you
want. Then keep an eye on it.
At about hour 22 get all your guests there and have them eat a piece of some
meat based appetizer, or maybe curried aioli and aparagus or some type of
jerked chicken with peach or pear chutney. Not that vinegar based shit
either that shit sucks and it tastes like pis. Plus it doesn't pair with the
soup you have painstakingly reduced for 22 hours. Have that shit ready to
serve by hour 23.5 by turning up the heat and reducing it to a "slop" sound,
not a beef stew sounding slop either, thing lentil soup with a little water.
If for some reason you got it too salty add some lemon and a couple
tblspoons of sugar to mellow that shit out because salty food sucks.
Actually dont add anymore than 1 tsp of salt unless you are a salt fiend.
Salt can fix food but it also makes it hard to fix if you over do it. Anyhow
yeah. there you go. 24 hour mushroom soup and 3 hour mushroom stew/soup.

...

What are some of your recipes? What is rice pilaf exactly? I have seen rice
pilaf advertised 1,000,000 times but it is always different. I used to make
this rice dish with apricot stuffed chicken breasts and rice and a small
amount of cous cous. Supposedly some turkish shit. I didn't like it but
people would pretend they liked it because it was expensive and tasted
"exotic" it had fennel and all this other stuff in it that most poeple dont
use in food. What is your favorite thing to eat? What was your favorite food
your mother made when you were a child? You know what dish I abhor? Adobo. I
hate that shit. More than anything.

The Pilaf



I sent him this recipe and he had some suggestions.

NOIGE!

That is a pretty good recipe. You could do a lot with it. First thing that
comes to mind is a broth reduction with wine and then stuff some type of
meat with the outcome of the rice. Have you noticed how people love stuffed
things? That is weird. Stuff anything and people like it by default I
learned that while I was cooking, especially mushrooms and peppers. You
could stuff a mushroom with seaweed paste, pureed oysters and a small amount
of some type of cheese and people would love it. Man that sounds gross
haahaha.