Wild Forest Mushroom Soup

Serves 6

 This wild mushroom soup makes a perfect start for your dinner party or simply as a delicious meal. The flavors and texture makes it a very rich soup and healthy. Mushrooms are a great source of B-vitamins and minerals; an 80g serving counts as one of your 5-a-day. I used chicken stock but feel free to use vegetarian stock instead.

Ingredients

30g of dried wild mushrooms or dried porcini

600g of mixed fresh wild mushrooms of your choice, cleaned and sliced (for instance: shiitake, portabella, portabellini, chanterelles, chestnut, oyster)

1 clove of garlic, peeled and finely sliced

2 shallots, finely chopped

30g of butter

1 tsp. of dried thyme

1 litre of chicken stock or vegetable stock

25g of fresh flat-leaf parsley, leaves picked and chopped

100 ml white wine

½ lemon

200ml of half fat crème fraîche

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preparation

Rinse the dried wild mushrooms or dried porcini and place in a small dish, add boiling water just to cover, and leave to soak for 20 min. Clean and slice your fresh mushrooms and sprinkle them with lemon.

For this soup it is best to use a wide but not very deep pan. A casserole type would be ideal. Heat the butter on medium heat. Add the garlic and chopped shallots and gently fry without coloring for about 5 min. or until softened.

Add the mushrooms and stir around for a minute, then add the wine, a tsp. of dried thyme and season with a little salt and freshly ground pepper. Cover the pan and cook gently for 10 min. Then add the chopped up dried mushroom and reserve its soaking liquid for the stock as it enhances the flavor. Stir around and cook gently for another 10 min.

Now it’s time to add your stock and the soaking liquid of the dried mushrooms/porcini. Bring to a boil and simmer for around 10 min.  The next step is to stir in the crème fraîche and simmer for another 10 min. Turn off the heat and let the soup cool down for a few minutes.

I love to keep some of the texture in this soup, so at this stage I remove ⅓ from soup.  Then purée the ⅔ of the soup with a blender and pour it back together. Return the soup to a simmer, add the chopped flat-leaf parsley, taste whether it needs some more seasoning and you are ready to serve.

Bon Appetite 😉