Recipe: Creamy Mushroom Soup

Yep. I've started cooking again and i have three recipes to share with you - Chicken and Sweet Corn Soup, Creamy Mushroom Soup and my version of a Spaghetti Bolognaise. I'll post one each day or something but today we'll start with the mushroom soup :)

I got this recipe out of the Coles Magazine and it tricked me when it said it would cater for 8 people. It only gives 4 decent sized bowls (like the ones pictured above) or 8 small bowls like the small chinese bowls you eat rice with. Now despite that being pretty stingy, i can understand why. This soup is creamy and rather fattening considering the amount of butter and cream i am not used to cooking with but the end result was worth it :) 

1. Clean and finely slice one leek. 

(The way to do this is to chop the green half (leaves) off the leek and only use the white half as the green part is bitter. When chopping and cleaning the leek, leave the root intact or everything will fall apart when you slice it. To clean the leek, first cut the leek longitudinally in half, making sure that you leave about 4cm space from the root. Turn the leek over 90 degrees and cut through longitudinally again. If you look down the end of the leek, it should now look like you have quartered it. Wash your leek under running water to get rid of any excess dirt. Now finely slice the leek, starting from the free end.)

2. Out of the 700g of mushrooms, leave four aside and roughly chop the rest of mushrooms, making sure that they are all the same size so they cook evenly. Peel and crush 2 garlic cloves.  

3. Melt 60g of butter into a deep saucepan/pot and add the leeks. Sweat the leeks until they are soft and golden on a medium heat for 3-4min. Now add the garlic cloves. 

4. Add the mushrooms and soften them for a few minutes. Now add two tablespoons of plain flour to thicken the mixture and stir it in well. 

5. Add 4 cups of chicken or vegetable stock. Let this simmer for 5 minutes on medium heat. Taste the soup and adjust if needed. 

6. In order to get a thick and creamy consistency, we need to puree the soup. If you use a normal blender/food processor like we did, make sure you slightly cool the soup first before pureeing it. I wish i had a wand blender in times like this... would save so much time instead of pureeing it in batches gah :( :( :( 

7. When all of the soup has been pureed, transfer it back to the pot and add 300mL of cream (!!) to it. Reheat gently and adjust the seasoning and consistency to your taste. (If you pureed it too much, you can thicken it again with a bit of corn flour and water. If there is not enough flavour then add some salt and pepper etc.)

8. While the soup is reheating, finely slice the 4 left over mushrooms and sautee them in some butter in a small saucepan. 

9. Ladle your finished soup into a bowl and add the mushrooms on top. Don't forgot some cracked pepper and goats cheese for extra tang and there you go :) Perfect for cold days and when studying for exams is more important than your waistline LOL....

Hope this recipe wasn't too long but Farn and i did have a lot of fun cooking it! I promise that the next two will be a lot healthier and shorter haha