Mushroom soup

I cooked dinner for some friends the other night and for a starter made mushroom soup. I love mushroom soup. Growing up, I used to love making mushroom soup after picking mushrooms growing wild on the farm. There would be a small window of opportunity when the mushrooms would flourish and we would be out there picking as many as we could find.

Now that I am a city slicker, I have to resort to store-bought mushrooms. I grabbed a mixture of button mushrooms and the big flat brown mushrooms from my local supermarket. I think if you were willing to widen your search and perhaps go to a specialty vege store, or an Asian supermarket, you might find a wider variety of mushrooms. I had some dried mixed mushrooms, so I re-hydrated them with some boiling water, and added them to my soup.

Anyway, I was talking up the deliciousness of my soup at work the next day, and my workmate asked for the recipe, so here it is. This is based on the Edmonds Cook Book version, and Jamie Oliver's recipe but as always, I have modified them both to suit.

Melt a knob of butter and some olive oil in a saucepan, add a chopped onion, some garlic and about 500g of chopped mushrooms (depending on how many servings you want - this will make enough for about four). I also added my re-hydrated mixed mushrooms. Cook until the onion is clear and then add a few tablespoons of flour. Cook for a few minutes, and then add three cups of liquid. I used a mixture of milk and stock, but you can use only stock if you want. Vege stock is fine, but chicken stock also works really well.

Boil this mixture for about 5-10 minutes. Add some salt and pepper and parsley to taste. At this point, I used my stick blender to blend up some of the soup (I just gave it a few bursts in the pan - I wanted to keep some of the texture). When serving, I prefer to squeeze some lemon onto my soup. My partner is not a fan however, so I served the soup up with a wedge of lemon beside for my guests if they wanted.

This is super tasty - enjoy!