Homemade Mushroom Soup

Serves 4-6

Most of us are very familiar with the household brand, Campbell. It’s famous for its soup-in-a-can or in-a-sachet that requires almost no cooking skill to prepare. All one needs is a pot or a cup, add hot water and voila, mushroom soup (or other variants) that’s loved by all—young or old.

Most people that I know of, are under the impression that it’s rocket science to make mushroom soup. The truth is, with few fresh ingredients, the soup is so much easier to make from scratch; and a good bowl of mushroom soup goes a long way in warming the body and soothing the soul.

An essential cooking tool that helps preparing the soup is a blender. I like to use a hand-held blender to prepare this because I can blend the soup in the pot and control the consistency of it to my liking, plus there are fewer parts to wash compared to the traditional blender. If you do not own or have one, don’t worry, simply chop all the mushrooms as finely as you possibly could, and the soup will be served with rustic presentation and charm.

I usually use three types of mushrooms to make this soup because each type of mushroom has its own unique nutty flavour, so meddling different variation of mushrooms results in a robust and flavourful soup. Do try out this recipe with any type of mushroom you can source from local market such as enoki, brown, porcini, chanterelle, portabello, etc and try to avoid using canned mushrooms, if possible.

So, here’s my very simple version of homemade mushroom soup that is easy and oh-so-much-fresher-and-better than any of those store bought’s. This is for my dear cousin, who requested for this recipe. Hope you and your family enjoy this just as much as I do. Bon appetite!

Ingredients

2 tbsp	Olive oil or other vegetable oil
1	Large red onion, chopped finely
3 cloves	Garlic, minced
1 stalk	Celery (optional), ribs removed and chopped finely
100 g	Oyster mushroom, chopped
100 g	Shiitake mushrooms, chopped
100 g	White button mushrooms, chopped
½ cup	White wine (optional), if not available use chicken stock
1 sprig	Fresh thyme, or 1 tbsp dried thyme
2 cups	Chicken stock
1 cup	full-cream milk
	Salt and pepper to season
	Chives or parsley, chopped finely to garnish

Directions

1.	At medium heat, drizzle the oil in a heavy-bottom pot (stainless steel preferred), add onion to sauté until tender, add garlic to continue sauté until the aroma is released.
2.	Add in the celery and stir constantly until tender, add the mushrooms, continue sautéing them. When the mushroom are completely mixed with other ingredients, close the pot with a lid and let the moisture from mushroom release (about 3 minutes).
3.	De-glazed the bottom of the pot by pouring in the wine, mix well. Add in thyme.
4.	When the liquid is reduced, pour in the stock slowly and let it simmer in low heat for 15 minutes.
5.	Turn off the heat, add in the milk, mix well. Let the soup come to room temperature, use a blender to pulse until the soup is smooth or to any consistency you prefer. Season with salt and pepper.
6.	Garnish the soup with chopped chives or parsley, serve warm.