A few years ago my workmate S had all the girls in our team over for a Sunday lunch. I remember that there was a lot of gossiping and a lot of wine. There was a lot of food too, but the only thing I remember was the delicious mushroom soup, which was S’s mother’s recipe. Naturally, I asked for the recipe and it was hastily written down on a little scrap of paper, which I put into my recipe folder. Up until recently, my recipe folder was a disastrous mess, with random recipes jammed everywhere and a whole heap of loose recipes shoved between the covers. A very thoughtful birthday gift from Z & B was a new folder and with it, an opportunity to clear through the mess and cull some of the clippings.
During my clean out process I found this little recipe again. I had actually made the soup around the time I got the recipe but had forgotten about it. A hearty mushroom soup was the perfect antidote to a very cold and rainy Sunday.
I like this recipe because it is very simple and unlike many mushroom soup recipes, it does not require ridiculous quantities of cream. I just can’t bring myself to make a soup that requires a litre of cream! This recipe has no cream at all, although the original version made up for it by including a whopping 750g of butter. I wasn’t really okay with this either and reduced the butter substantially and this is still a rich, comforting soup.
As this soup is very simple, the key is adding quite a lot of black pepper and some parsley on the top. Enjoy!
Mushroom soup
190g butter
2 onions, chopped
4 cloves of garlic
700g mushrooms (I used field mushrooms, but of course, this time of year you could use some other varieties, such as pine mushrooms or slippery jacks)
2 tbs flour
2 tsp ground coriander
600ml milk
600ml water
salt and pepper to taste
handful of parsley
- Fry the onion and garlic in the butter until translucent.
- Add the mushrooms and cook until they are soft, dark and fragrant.
- Add the flour and coriander and cook for 3-4 minutes (so that the flour cooks).
- Add the milk and water. Bring to the boil, then simmer for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Blend the soup together.
- Season with plenty of salt and black pepper. Serve with parsley on top.
- Enjoy!
I made this for my vegetarian sister for Sunday lunch. Unfortunately at the last minure she couldn’t make it so I got to have the whole lot my self. Lunches for a whole week! I used a combination of field, swiss brown, button and 1 other type who’s name escapes me (perhaps slipper jacks?) (200g of each) and it was magnificent. Thanks!