Mushroom sauce / basic recipe

Ingredients for 4 servings:

• ½ small onion(s)
• 2 tbsp oil
• 250 ml vegetable stock
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 tbsp mushrooms, mixed, dried, chanterelles, button mushrooms
• 250 g mushrooms, fresh (e.g. porcini mushrooms, chanterelles, button mushrooms
• 1 tbsp parsley, chopped
• 200 g veal stock
• 80 g cream
• 2 tbsp butter, cold
• 1 pinch(s) caraway, ground, cayenne pepper
• Salt and pepper, from the mill

Instructions

Working time approx. 40 minutes; Total time approx. 40 minutes

Goes well with meat, game, wildfowl, dumplings and pasta.

Peel the onion, dice it into small cubes, and sauté it in a pan in 1 tbsp of oil until translucent. Add vegetable stock, add the bay leaf, and simmer until softened. Add the dried mushrooms and let the sauce simmer for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, clean the fresh mushrooms, avoiding washing them if possible, and chop them finely. Fry them in a pan in the remaining oil for about 2 minutes, add the parsley, and season with salt and pepper. After 20 minutes, remove the bay leaf from the stock, puree the sauce with a hand blender, and pass it through a sieve. Add the veal jus and cream, and mix in the butter. Season the finished sauce with salt, caraway, and cayenne pepper, and stir in the fried mushrooms. Tip: Don’t let the dried mushrooms simmer in the base sauce for too long, and especially don’t let them boil, so the sauce doesn’t become bitter. A quick way to make mushroom sauce: Simply mix a reduced dark sauce with a little cream and add fried mushrooms. The mushroom flavor won’t be as intense, though. Cognac pepper sauce: Omit the mushrooms and deglaze the onions with a little cognac and add 1 teaspoon of pickled green peppercorns.