Since my children finally approve of mushrooms we have revived an old recipe for mushroom soup. You can do this with any sort of mushrooms really. We did it with porcini, which makes the flavour more intense, simply because we had friends for lunch and wanted to make something a bit more special, but it tastes very nice too with fresh mushrooms only (we used chestnut mushrooms but white cup mushrooms work well too). You need:
- 500 gr mushrooms (sliced)
- 30 gr porcini
- water (for the porcini) - 2 glasses
- 2 onions (diced)
- 1 clove of garlic (sliced)
- olive oil ( 3 table spoons)
- a knob of butter
- a sprinkle of chopped parsley
- 1 bay leaf
- 750 ml stock (or water if you do not have any stock)
- 3 tablespoons of creme fraiche
- salt
Heat the oil and butter in a deep pan. Pour two glasses of boiling water over the dried porcini and let them rest until they become soft) Add the onions and garlic and let it cook over slow heat until they become soft and translucent. Add the sliced mushrooms, then the porcini (without the water) and the parsley and let it all cook for 10-15 minutes. Add salt, the bay leaf and the stock and let it all boil for 20-25 minutes. Add the creme fraiche and mix with a hand held blender. We fried slices of mushrooms and served the soup with them on top.
