Golden Gouda Mushroom Soup — Making Soup When the Storm Hasn’t Come Yet

The Polish food series is rolling. Part two — "The Establishment: Churches, Festivals, and the Kitchens That Built a Community" — is in progress. This one covers the 1940s through the 1990s: the era when Polish Milwaukee was at its peak, when every parish had a festival, every festival had pierogi, and every kitchen was a classroom where the next generation learned the recipes. Mrs. Wojcik is my primary source. She lived it all. She remembers the parish festivals of the 1950s where fifty women would make ten thousand pierogi in a single weekend. She remembers the dances at the Polish Center, the wedding receptions at the church halls, the funeral dinners where the food was as important as the eulogy. "In our community," she told me, "feeding people after a funeral was how you said: we will survive this. We will eat and we will continue." I recorded eight hours of interviews with Mrs. Wojcik over two weekends. Eight hours. She talked about her mother, her aunts, her neighbors. She talked about how the recipes changed — slowly, imperceptibly — as the women adapted to American ingredients. Polish pickled beets made with Wisconsin beets. Pierogi made with Idaho potatoes instead of the small, waxy potatoes from the old country. Kielbasa from Usinger's instead of the village butcher. The food stayed Polish but became American too. The way all immigrant food does. The way all of us do. The coronavirus is getting closer. Cases in multiple US states now. The stock market is dropping. People at the brewery are starting to talk about it — what happens if the taproom closes, what happens if production slows. Marcus is watching the news with the grim focus of a man who runs a business that depends on people gathering in rooms to drink. I made Babcia's ┼╝urek this week — the sour rye soup with the five-day starter. The process is unchanged: make the starter on Monday, let it ferment, and by Saturday the apartment smells like sourdough and anticipation. The soup was warm and sour and smoky and perfect, and I ate it and tried not to think about the news and failed, because the news is getting harder to ignore. Something is coming. I can feel it the way you can feel a storm before the sky changes. The air is different. The world is different. I don't know what it means yet. But I'm going to keep making soup.

??urek takes five days and requires a kind of faith I don’t always have — faith that the starter will work, that the process will hold, that Saturday will arrive. This week I had that faith, and the soup paid me back. But the recipe I keep returning to when I want something deeply warming and achievable in a single evening is this Golden Gouda Mushroom Soup: earthy, rich, a little smoky from the cheese, with the same quality that Mrs. Wojcik’s stories keep circling back to — the sense that a good bowl of something hot is an act of stubbornness against whatever is coming. Make it when the air feels different. Make it especially then.

Golden Gouda Mushroom Soup

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 30 min | Total Time: 45 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 lb cremini or baby bella mushrooms, sliced
• 1/2 lb shiitake mushrooms, stems removed, caps sliced
• 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves (or 1/2 teaspoon dried)
• 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 4 cups low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 8 oz smoked Gouda, shredded (rind removed)
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• Fresh chives or parsley, chopped, for serving

Instructions

1. Sweat the aromatics. Melt butter in a large heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute more until fragrant.
2. Cook the mushrooms. Add all the mushrooms to the pot in a single layer as best you can. Let them cook undisturbed for 3–4 minutes to develop color, then stir and continue cooking until the mushrooms have released their liquid and it has mostly evaporated, about 8–10 minutes total. Stir in the thyme and smoked paprika.
3. Build the base. Sprinkle the flour over the mushroom mixture and stir well to coat. Cook for 1–2 minutes to eliminate the raw flour taste. Gradually pour in the broth, stirring constantly to prevent lumps. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the soup has thickened slightly.
4. Add the dairy. Reduce heat to low. Stir in the milk and heavy cream. Allow to warm through gently — do not boil — about 3 minutes.
5. Melt in the Gouda. Add the shredded smoked Gouda a small handful at a time, stirring after each addition until fully melted and incorporated before adding the next. Stir in the Worcestershire sauce. Taste and season with salt and black pepper as needed.
6. Serve. Ladle into bowls and top with fresh chives or parsley. Good bread alongside is not optional.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 320 | Protein: 14g | Fat: 22g | Carbs: 14g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 520mg