Mushroom Soup

Ingredients:

• About 1 kg Mushrooms (button or cup)
• 8 Large Swiss Brown Mushrooms
• 10 Oyster Mushrooms
• 45g Dried Porcini Mushrooms
• 2 spring onions, chopped
• 1 Spanish, or red Onion, chopped
  
• 2 Litres Chicken or Vegetable Stock
• 250ml Cream (light preferably)
  
• 3 Garlic cloves, crushed or grated (I grate all my garlic)
• Handful of chopped fresh thyme leaves
• handful of chopped continental (flatleaf) Parsley
• 4 or 5 tblsp Mascarpone cheese
• 1 lemon
  

Method

• Place the dried Porcini mushrooms in a bowl and cover with boiled water, and place to one side. In a large pot, heat a large lug of Olive Oil and add the onions and mushrooms (excpet the Porcini. Once the mix started to get moist and fragrant, add the herbs and garlic (save a little of the thyme for garnishing if you wish).
• Simmer for about 10 mins and then add the stock. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
  
• When the Porcini is soft strain into another bowl to remove grit, and save the water. Chop half the Porcini and add to the mushrooms, put the other half to the side for later. Add the Porcini water.
• Simmer for about 20 mins, then allow to cool a little. Take half the soup and process it, or use a chef master mixer, then return it to the soup. Place soup back on heat. Add Cream and bring to the boil, then remove from heat
• Pour into bowls, garnish the remaining Procini mushrooms in the centre of each bowl, and ladle with a spoon the juice of 1 lemon between the bowls. Lightly dust with the zest from the lemon and any thyme that you reserved. Serve with a big dollop of the Mascarpone, and thick crusty bread.
  

Every once in a while I make something that pretty much ruins meals for me. By this I mean that once I've had it my way, I cannot conceivably order it at a restaurant ever again. I did it with Spaghetti Bolognaise, and now I've done it with this Mushroom soup. Up until about 3 or so years ago, I was not a fan of any mushrooms but there was this Cafe that I used to live above (next door to a porn shop) in Kings Cross, Sydney. They served a massive 3 egg omelette with mushrooms in it which totally rewired my taste for mushrooms. Unfortunately the Cafe is no longer there, but I'll never forget those Omelettes. And so began my exploration of mushrooms.

This recipe is another Jamie Oliver recipe variation, I dont think he uses cream, from Jamie's Dinners (Page 148).

Enjoy!

-James, the Not So Skinny Cook