Just a quick writeup of some soup I made today.
Ingredients
Makes about three quarts.
- One pound baby bella mushrooms, diced
- One quart vegetable stock
- One quart half and half or light cream
- One stick (1/4 lb.) of butter
- One cup flour
- One tablespoon dried minced onions
- Two tablespoons minced garlic
- 6-8oz white wine (optional) – add additional stock if not using
- Salt, pepper, Old Bay, and sugar (added to taste)
Notes / Possible Substitutions
- I used a purchased vegetable stock, which was fairly salty. You may need to add more salt to taste if your stock isn’t as salty.
- A pint of heavy cream might be usable instead of a quart of light cream, but I haven’t tested this.
- I used a mini bottle of Sutter Home Sauvingon Blanc, but any dry white wine should work. Some recipes use sherry but I didn’t have any.
Directions
In a large frying pan, melt the butter and add the onions and garlic. Simmer over low heat until the onions are soft. You can also substitute fresh diced onion and cook until slightly browned. In a large pot, start heating the stock (if using stock instead of wine, set aside a cup of stock for the roux).
Wash the mushrooms and pat dry with a paper towel. Dice the mushrooms into approximately 1/4 to 1/2 inch cubes, depending on how chunky you want the soup and how much chopping you want to do. Add the mushrooms to the pan.
Lightly salt the mushrooms to draw out the moisture. Simmer on low-medium heat for 10 to 15 minutes until cooked and the liquid in the pan is starting to dry up. Add the wine (or equivalent amount of stock) and stir in the flour until a roux forms. You may not need to use the entire cup of flour. If it is too thick, spoon in some stock from the soup pot until it is thin enough to pour, then pour it into the soup pot.
Stir vigorously until everything is dissolved. Next, mix in the cream and stir until evenly mixed.
Reduce to low heat and simmer for about one hour, stirring often to prevent stickage.
Add pepper and Old Bay to taste. I added a light coating over the entire surface of the pot. Finally, mix in about a tablespoon of sugar, just barely enough for the soup to taste slightly sweet. Serve hot or freeze for later use. I purchased these silicone large ice cube trays which makes about a half serving of soup per cube.
I plan on using this recipe as the basis for a cream of crab soup I will be making later this week. We haven’t had a good cream of crab soup since a local deli shut down several years ago, and this recipe already comes very close to it. My plan is to still use some mushrooms in the initial preparation but remove the mushrooms themselves before mixing everything together, which should still retain much of the flavor. And then, of course, adding crab meat.
