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Autumn

Perfect for the Holidays: Cream of Mushroom Soup

Few things in the culinary kingdom are better than mushrooms in my mind – especially when you slow cook them over low heat to get all of their moisture out and concentrate their flavor.  Comforting to no end – especially when paired with a good salad and some bread to soak it all up.

Trust me, this soup is not your traditional out-of-the-can variety cream of mushroom.  It is also not over the top creamy, which I like.  It’s focus is on the mushroom flavor, as it should be in my opinion.  This recipe is one that I owe to Elise over at Simply Recipes – I’ve adapted it a little, but the base is from her site (which I discovered actually appears to be a Wolfgang Puck recipe).  When I was initially searching for a mushroom soup recipe, I decided to try hers because of her inclusion of lemon juice – which I though would pair very well with the flavor of the mushrooms and add something extra that other recipes lacked.  It worked too – you couldn’t really taste the acid of the lemon per se, but there was certainly something there that was bringing the whole soup to life.

I decided to use Crimini mushrooms in this soup, but the better the mushrooms you can gather, the better your soup!  If you can afford it, shitakes, chanterelles or ever porcinis would only enhance this soups flavor – but I was cooking on somewhat of a budget being holiday time, so I decided to go with a more affordable mushroom.

To make this recipe you will need either a food processor or a blender, and both will work (see my instructions below).  A great accompaniment to this soup (a topper) would be garlic croutons from Aimee’s Caeser Salad recipe, and some parsley. Enjoy!

• 1 lb. Mushrooms – A combination of Criminis, Shitakes, Portobellos, Chanterelles, Porcinis (I used all criminis (baby portobello), which is totally fine)
• 3 medium sized shallots – minced or grated
• 1 clove garlic – finely minced or crushed into a paste
• 5-6 thyme sprigs – leaves removed and chopped
• 2 bay leaves
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1/2 tsp. lemon zest
• 2-3 c. chicken stock (homemade preferable) – amount depends on the consistency you like your soup to be – for a thicker soup, use less stock
• 1 1/2 – 2 c. Cream (half and half or heavy cream or both)
• 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
• Salt and pepper
• chopped parsley for garnish (optional)

Start out by prepping the mushrooms:

• Criminis (baby bellas): clean any dirt off the mushrooms (try not to run them under water though!!!) and trim the ends of the stems off, then quarter them.
• Shitakes: remove the stems and quarter the caps.
• Porcinis: clean off any dirt and quarter them, stem and all.
• Chanterelles: cut them lengthwise into quarters.
• Portobellos: stems should already be removed – cut the caps into 1/2 inch strips and then half the strips.

**Food processor method**: Once you have your mushrooms prepped: load them up into you food processor with the juice of half of the lemon and chop until they are the consistency of a fine dice. (see the ‘no food processor method’ below)

Meanwhile, in a heavy bottomed pot, melt the butter over medium heat, add in the shallots and cook for 4-5 minutes until translucent.  Add in the garlic, thyme, bay leaves and mushrooms and continue to cook over medium-low heat.  Salt the ingredients at this point to help the moisture release.  As the mushrooms begin to cook, you’ll see that they release some moisture.  This is a good thing – continue to cook them until you can see that all of this moisture has cooked off – may take 10-15 minutes.  Make sure the heat is low enough so they don’t brown too much.

Once the moisture is gone – add in the stock, cream, lemon zest, black pepper and a little more salt.  Bring the liquid to a boil and reduce the heat to a simmer and let this cook for around 15-20 minutes.  Add in the rest of the lemon juice and stir to combine.  Taste the soup at this point and adjust the salt levels as needed for your tastes.  If the soup is too thin at this point, continue to cook – if it is too thick, add a little more stock.

If you desire a less chunky soup, you can run the soup through a blender at this point, but I would not recommend using a sieve to strain this soup.  If you are fine with the consistency, serve it as is!  Top with some croutons and chopped parsley – and if you really want to take it over the top, finish it with some truffle oil.

**No food processor method**: Cook the prepped mushrooms in the pan as you would with the chopped mushrooms, but you will need to cook them for a little longer to render out the moisture.  You will also want to use a blender to puree the soup after it is done cooking, then bring back to the heat and cook down or thin as necessary.

Serves 4-5

Tags: chanterelle, Cream of Mushroom, Cream of Mushroom Soup, crimini, shitake