Wild Mushroom Soup

I cannot express into words how much I love Marx Foods. For starters, how exotic and gourmet their ingredients are. Boar sausage? Who knew! But what really gets me is their staff. They tend to give away little samplers - spices, dried mushrooms, dried chiles - and when they do, I always receive a nice, hand-written note from whoever sent it. Even the emails seem personal because they would comment on one of my blog posts, letting me know that they actually visited and read my blog. Many kudos! Once I get a real job and pay off my loans (ha yea right), I will splurge on your products. It just might take five years XP

ANYWAY

Marx Foods was offering samples of dried mushrooms. You got to pick four types (except for dried morels because they were out when I read the post), so I chose porcini, oyster, black trumpet, and maitake. I knew immediately I wanted to make cream of mushroom soup. After searching, I finally decided on a recipe from Closet Cooking. For the herbs, I used fresh parsley because that's what I had. I have no idea if I used a pound of mushrooms or not. Doubtful, but eh it looked like enough. Also, I didn't have time to roast the mushrooms because I didn't plan ahead :X

The nice thing about dried mushrooms is you can rehydrate them and use in any mushroom recipe. You let them soak for about 30 minutes. Then you strain the liquid through a coffee strainer to remove the dirt particles (I guess it was dirt??). Tada! Now you have mushroom stock for soup.

There are some arguments as to whether this is cream of mushroom soup. Yes, there is cream but it's not thick like the kind from the can. I tried not to blend the soup too much because I wanted chunky mushroom soup.

Wild Mushroom Soup




1 pound mushrooms, any combination, cut into slices/chunks
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/2 cup white onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon parsley, thyme, or sage, chopped
4 cups soup stock (chicken or veggie)
Salt and pepper to taste
1 cup heavy cream

1. If using dried mushrooms, place into bowl and cover with hot water. Let sit for 30 minutes or until tender. Drain liquid into a coffee strainer. Measure the amount, subtract from 4 cups, and use chicken stock for the remaining amount. For example, I had 2 cups mushroom stock, so I needed 2 more cups of chicken stock. Chop mushrooms if needed.

2. In a large skillet, saute onion in oil for 5 minutes or until tender. Add garlic and parsley and saute for 1 minute. Pour in soup stock and simmer for 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Pour small amount of soup into a blender. Blend until desired consistency is reached (I let mine be a little chunky). Pour into a clean saucepan. Repeat until all of the soup is blended. Please be careful because hot liquid will expand and make a mess of your kitchen if you try to blend too much at once.

4. Reheat soup until hot again. Turn off heat. Mix in cream. Serve.

Makes: 6-8 servings

Source: Adapted from Closet Cooking