Celeriac soup with wild mushrooms; christmas cooking

Can someone tell me, please, where the time went?? One day I was thinking; o we have plenty of time before it’s christmas time and the next minute it is only a mere 10 days away!! Ten days people!! That is just waaaay to short. Needless to say that I had a slight burst of pre-christmas anxiety; the part where you are thinking; ‘O my god, I haven’t even thought of what to make!! And I need to test if it’s any good!’

As was the case last year, we have people over for both days. We decided that day one would be the easy day so we’re just gonna take out the stonegrill and have some fun. It’s with friends and we’re spending part of the evening unwrapping gift and reading funny poems that we made, so it’s very easy going and there should be easy going food. No need to be in the kitchen, other then to toss a salad together, bake some bread and make some sauces and the rest is as easy as can be. But…. the second day of christmas Tom’s parents and his brother and girlfriend will be coming over and we just want to make something good.

So this morning I was frantically leaving through stacks and stacks of cooking magazines while still sitting in bed. Tom  had to leave at the terribly early hour of 7 am, so I was up anyway. It’s freezing cold at the moment here and we have a little teeny bit of chance that we might even have a white christmas!! Fingers crossed!!

We had already decided on the main course which will be a honey glazed ham with sides (don’t know which sides yet, although I have an idea) but because I have never glazed a ham before, I bought a tiny one today so we can practice before the big night…You don’t want to fail come christmas now, do you??

For the rest of the menu; this is my initial thought, which will most likely be adjusted as cooking progresses:

Celeriac soup with wild mushrooms

Filodough with guacamole, dutch shrimps (grey shrimps) and cherry tomatoes

Honeyglazed ham

Creamy leek pie

Winter leaf & parsnip salad with walnuts

Bubble & squeak croquettes (ok, I did not come up with that name!!)

Italian baked icecream out of the oven (that’s gonna be fabulous I think; it’s a hollow panetone, fill with grand marnier (a little!!), icecream and cover with eggwhite and then put in the oven for a short while… hmmm. More to follow on that later!)

Obviously I have picked recipes which can be prepared mostly up front, so it’s just gonna be finishing off on the day itself. But again as we get nearer, we might opt for different things as I find I do or do not like them.

Sofar the first (or possibly the second actually) course is fabulous. I bought all the ingredients for the celeriac soup today and making it is a breeze. You can prepare this soup a day ahead and just reheat when you want to eat it, saute the mushrooms, add them to the soup and you’re good to go.

The soup is lovely creamy and since I am going to serve it in little cups (the cups you’re seeing are in fact little teacups) it will not be too heavy. Also, to achieve the creaminess it does not use cream but milk so that makes it also lighter than you might think.

Here is the recipe which originally comes from the Dutch Delicious magazine :

Celeriacsoup with mushrooms (appetizer or small dish for 8-10 people)

20 gr dried porcini

5 tbsp of olive oil

4 sjalots, finely chopped

600 gr celeriac, peeled and cut into large chunks

1 leek, white part only, cut into rings

1,2 ltr (hot) vegetable stock

800 ml demi-fat milk

2 springs of rosemary

500 gr mixed mushrooms (porcini, cantharelle etc.) cleaned and cut into pieces

butter

2 sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves only

Preparations: (can be done a day ahead, start 1/2 day before the dinner)

Soak the porcini in 100 ml hot water. Heat 3 tbsp of oliveoil on medium fire and fry the onions untill glazed (about 5 minutes). Add celeriac and leeks and fry for another 5 minutes.

Pour the hot stock and the milk into the pan and bring to the boil. Boil for 10 minutes.

Add the soaked porcini and the rosemary and boil for another 10 minutes. Remove the rosemary and puree the soup in a blender or with a stickblender. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Finish:

Start 10 minutes before serving. Heat the rest of the oliveoil with the butter and bake the mushrooms on medium fire for about 8 minutes. Add a little salt, freshly ground pepper and fresh thyme leaves. In the meantime make sure you heat the soup through and through. Divide over 8 bowls. Put the mushrooms on top and a little bit of garnish.

Preparation 30 minutes/finishing 10 minutes