Comments on: Dinner With My Family #36: Wisconsin Farmhouse Chowder

By: Donna

Donna — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 20:50:18 +0000

Can’t wait to try this. Sounds and looks delish. Only thing i had to purchase was the shitake mushrooms.

By: Kate

Kate — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 10:23:44 +0000

I love this post…how to make good cream of mushroom soup and the manny butter tip.

By: valleycat1

valleycat1 — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 19:51:53 +0000

#3 – Thanks for the manny butter/beurre manois tip. It would add another step, but I’d probably heat & stir the butter/oil and flour mixture in a small pan beforehand, instead of adding directly to the soup. That’s the way my family’s cream sauce recipe does it. Or use cornstarch; you can even use leftover mashed potatoes as a thickener.

By: rebecca

rebecca — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 17:10:43 +0000

Steven, EXACTLY! And cream! We life long Badgers know how to use dairy!

By: Bookaunt

Bookaunt — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 15:48:13 +0000

We live in Nebraska but have made variations of this soup using canned cream soups as a base. Most of those recipes also call for chopped onions and celery, and cooking the potatoes, onions, and celery in water with added bouillon cubes or chicken broth. The frozen vegetables are added after the potatoes are just tender, and the canned soup and milk stirred in after the vegetables are cooked. Sometimes the cheese is stirred into the pot to melt instead of topping individual bowls. It isn’t gourmet but it is warming, nutritious, economical, flexible, and GOOD!

By: joan

joan — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 15:32:41 +0000

This sounds great and it is also a meal where I can have all the ingredients on hand for a quick meal. Taste great and quick, great combination.

By: dugsdale

dugsdale — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 13:11:48 +0000

One thing that could transform this dish would be the addition of “manny butter.” Rather than adding raw flour, you take one part softened butter, an equal part flour, and knead them together thoroughly. Add THAT to make your mushroom cream, be sure to cook it long enough for the raw-flour taste to cook off (very important), and you’ve really got something.

I learned about Manny Butter from a French chef (really French, and really a chef). One of his first cooking jobs in the states was a hotel kitchen, where the cooks were dese-dem-and-dose kind of guys. He was making a white sauce and asked if they had any beurre manois on hand, as all French kitchens did, and the cooks just looked at him funny. He started to describe it, and one of the cooks said, “Oh, you mean manny butter! Sure, it’s over there in the fridge.”

It’s actually a handy way to store a thickener for soups and sauces–make tablespoon-sized balls of manny butter and freeze them (making sure they’re fully thawed before dropping in the liquid–and making sure the raw-flour taste is fully cooked off before serving (you can smell the raw flour as it cooks off).

Thanks for the recipe, Trent. Great for chilly days coming up.

By: kk

kk — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 11:34:50 +0000

Looks delicious! Thanks for sharing. This is one I think my family will really enjoy.

By: Steven

Steven — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 21:29:51 +0000

I’ve lived in SW Wisconsin my entire life, and can’t say this is something that’s ever graced my table. Not enough CHEESE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!