Mushroom soup

I am a huge fan of mushroom soup. Our recent trip to Edinburgh solidified this fact for me, as I had an absolutely superb mushroom soup on our last night at Whiski Room. Rich, earthy and full of delicious flavours, I was determined that we give it a try.

Recipe

from Epicurious.comServes 4-66 tbsp butter1 small onion, thinly sliced12 oz button mushrooms4 cups chicken stock or broth1 sprig flat parsleysalt and pepper2 oz high-quality sherryIn the medium saucepan, melt 2 tablespoons of the butter over medium heat and add the onion. Cook until the onion is soft and translucent, then add the mushrooms and the remaining butter. Let the mixture sweat for about 8 minutes, taking care that the onion doesn't take on any brown color. Stir in the chicken stock and the parsley and bring to a boil. Immediately reduce the heat and simmer for about an hour.After an hour, remove the parsley and discard. Let the soup cool for a few minutes and either transfer to blender in batches or use an immersion blender and blend at high speed until smooth. When blended, return the mix to the pot, season with salt and pepper, and bring up to a simmer again. Add the sherry, mix well, and serve immediately.

Musings

A few notes on preparation: We added roughly 4 oz of shiitake mushrooms just to punch up the flavour a bit. Added a splash of cream for garnish.Delicious! We were both very impressed with the soup, particularly given its relative simplicity. It had a wonderfully full, round flavour and was surprisingly rich and creamy, despite not having any cream in it! The shiitakes likely helped the flavourfulness, and we could definitely try adding in different types of mushrooms in the future. Definitely a winner.