We normally drink thin clear soups at home like chicken soup, tom yum soup, tofu soup, seaweed soup and so on. It is only when we patronise western restaurants that we drink thick soup like mushroom soup, lobster bisques or thick vegetable soups. Of the so many thick and creamy soups available, our favourites are the pumpkin soup (which I have already posted in my blog) and the mushroom soup.
When I first wanted to make the mushroom soup, I kept staring at the many types of mushrooms available in the supermarket. I managed to ask an English lady which type of mushrooms that she uses in her mushroom soup. She told me that she preferred the white button mushroom as she did not like the dull colour of the brown mushrooms. I searched the World Wide Web and found that a good mushroom soup will contain a variety of mushrooms to take advantage of the qualities of each.
Ingredients:
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1 big onion
- 500 g white button mushroom
- 300 g baby Portobello mushroom
- 25 g baby Portobello mushroom, optional (if you like to have bits of mushroom in your soup)
- 30 g butter
- 250 ml whipping cream
- 125 g wheat flour
- 250 ml water
- 1250 ml chicken stock
- 1 tsp black pepper
Method:
- Peel, wash and chop the garlic.
- Peel, wash and dice the onion.
- Wash the 500 g of white button and 300 g of baby Portobello mushrooms and slice them thinly.
- Wash and chop the 25 g of baby Portobello mushrooms.
- Melt butter in a pot. Swirl the butter so that the bottom of the pot is covered by the melted butter.
- Add the garlic and saute it till fragrant.
- Add the onion and mushrooms (except the 25 g chopped mushrooms) into the pot. Stir until the onions are soft and the mushrooms are fragrant.
- Add the chicken stock. (If you do not have fresh chicken stock, you may use the cubed ones. Just take 1 - 1 1/2 cubes and add water to make up 1250 ml.) Stir to mix everything together. Bring it to a boil and let it simmer over medium heat for about 15 minutes or more to bring out the flavour of the soup.
- Let the soup cool down before pouring it into the blender. (This is important. If you try to blend the soup while it is still very hot, it will splash all over the minute you switch on the blender.)
- Blend till the garlic, onion and mushrooms are fine.
- Pour the blended soup back into the pot and let it boil again. (Optional. Put the 25 g of chopped mushrooms into your soup. Boil the soup for another 10 to 15 minutes.)
- Add the whipping cream into the soup. Stir.
- Mix water with the all-purpose flour. Add the flour mixture, tablespoon by tablespoon, into the soup slowly until you reach a nice consistency i.e. not too thin nor too thick.
- Add black pepper into the soup and stir.
- Turn off the fire and serve hot with bread if you like.