Mushroom Veloute

PREPARE a velout base by cooking the onion in butter in a 4-quart pot over medium heat, stirring almost continuously to prevent browning. When the onion turns translucent, after about 10 minutes, add the flour and stir over medium heat for 5 minutes more to cook out the starchy taste.

ADD the Madeira and broth, whisk the soup to get rid of any lumps, and bring it to a simmer. Simmer for 5 minutes.

PUT the mushrooms in a blender and add 1 cup of the hot soup base. Blend the mushrooms on high speed for about 2 minutes. Add a little more of the soup base if necessary to get them moving.

PUT a strainer over the pot and pour the contents of the blender through it into the pot with the rest of the base. Add the cream. If you want the soup perfectly smooth, strain it through a medium or fine-mesh strainer. Bring the soup back to a simmer and season it with salt and pepper. Ladle it into hot bowls and put a dollop of whipped cream on each serving.

SUGGESTIONS AND VARIATIONS This soup takes on a new dimension of flavor with wild or specially cultivated mushrooms. If you want to use dried mushrooms such as morels or porcini, soak a handful of the dried mushrooms in the Madeira or sherry used in the soup. When the mushrooms have softened, put them into the blender with the regular cultivated mushrooms.

You can also use dried mushrooms or mushroom stems to make a mushroom broth to use as the base for mushroom soup.

If you have fresh wild mushrooms such as morels, porcini, portobellos, or chanterelles, rinse them thoroughly and use them to replace any proportion of the regular cultivated mushrooms in the recipe. Save some of the whole mushrooms to decorate the bowls.