You're 6 Ingredients Away From Anthony Bourdain's Mushroom Soup

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For some of us, Anthony Bourdain is a master celebrity chef. While he certainly had a long history as a TV star, he was a legit culinarian. "Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook: Strategies, Recipes, and Techniques of Classic Bistro Cooking" was released in 2004 and has become a classic. It's even one of the old-school cookbooks that are now worth way more than you think. The book is full of French-inspired recipes (and solid cooking advice), but one of the standouts is the mushroom soup. It only has six ingredients, and who are we to shy away from a recipe that's easy and delicious?  

To recreate Bourdain's six-ingredient mushroom soup, all you need are button mushrooms, butter, an onion, chicken stock, a sprig of parsley, and sherry. In the intro of "Les Halles Cookbook," Bourdain recommends having some degree of kitchen knife skills and using high-quality ingredients. In this case, that means a good sherry, but he also notes that almost all of the cooks at Les Halles came into the job with no experience, so you just need to hang in there and follow along.

For any mushroom soup, you need to start with the mushrooms, and Bourdain's is no different. To clean them, you could put them in water to remove the dirty bits, but that can make them slippery and hard to slice, so you might be better off wiping them with a moist towel. Chop 12 ounces of mushrooms in half. Then, thinly slice an onion and sweat it in butter over medium heat. When the onion is translucent, toss in the mushrooms and cook together for about 8 minutes. After that, it's time to add 4 cups of chicken stock (or veggie stock) and a whole sprig of parsley. Once the mixture is bubbling, reduce the heat and let it simmer for 1 hour.

Allow the soup to cool a bit, then pulse it in a blender for a nice, smooth texture and return to a simmering pot. If you want this soup on the creamier side, add a good pour of heavy cream (the unofficial seventh ingredient). Then comes 2 ounces of sherry. Again, Bourdain calls for something decent, not just any old bottle at the grocery store. Quality sherry cooks down beautifully in this recipe, bringing a nice, salty flavor. As an alternative, you can use a dry white wine or apple cider vinegar (3 parts apple cider vinegar to 1 part water). 

Sprinkle in salt and pepper to taste, and you have a gorgeous, flavorful, umami-rich soup. As an optional finish to make it really shine in the bowl, sauté thin slices of mushrooms and place a few on top of each serving, along with chopped herbs and a drizzle of truffle oil.