BEWARE - For Mushroom Lovers Only

Recipe adapted from Jamie Oliver

This was the best bowl of mushroom soup I have almost ever had! Not sure if any of you were privileged enough to have the roasted mushroom soup from Milestones last summer, but besides being amazing and delicious it was also inspiring. I have had this recipe for over 6 months now and finally was brave enough to try it.

It is not a hard recipe, I just had very high expectations for this dish. Luckily it was perfect.

Now before we get into how this soup was made can we please just stop for a moment and thank the man (or the god) who is Jamie Oliver. Not just because this is his recipe, not just because he is super talented, not just because he is easy to look at, but because he is revolutionizing the way people look at food and cooking. He has multiple websites and projects on the go - not that I need to go into any of them, but he is dedicating himself to teaching the average person how to cook real food. How to stop just ripping open packages and to start caring about where their food comes from. He is really inspiring.

Okay on to soup.

Obviously start with a lot of mushrooms. Mixed mushrooms. I grabbed a nice selection from my grocery store.

Then I chopped them up. By hand. Next time - I will consider a food processor.

Cook them up and then add the stock. Simmer.

The soup can be eaten just like this but I used my hand blender and pureed about half of the soup. It was a great combination of texture that way!

This is the most important step. Without this the soup is just soup. When you add a tiny (and start small and add more) of lemon zest mix to your bowl of soup the whole thing moves up to the next level. It completely transforms your bowl. Yum. Jamie of course suggests using some grilled crostini, which would be amazing. I think some home made croutons would be great too. I also added a pinch of red pepper flakes to my bowl!

This soup was really really amazing. I hope you all try it soon.

Real Mushroom Soup

600g mixed wild mushrooms

2 cloves of garlic, sliced

1 red onion or shallot

1 tbsp butter

handful fresh thyme

salt and pepper

1 litre vegetable stock

handful fresh flat leaf parsley

1/4 cup half and half cream

1 lemon

Get a large casserole-type pan nice and hot, then add a good couple lugs of olive oil and your fresh mushrooms. After a minute add your garlic, onion, butter and thyme and a small amount of seasoning. After about a minute you'll probably notice moisture cooking out of the mushrooms and at this point add your stock. Bring to a boil and simmer for around 20 minutes. Remove half of the soup and puree, then add back to the soup. Add 1/4 cup of cream and season to taste carefully.

When you serve the soup, mix together a pinch of salt and pepper with the zest of one lemon and the juice of half of it, then spoon a little of this into the middle of your bowl and stir in. Delicious.

Enjoy

CC