Soup Sunday: Mushroom soup

I bought a soup recipe book recently, and it has given me tons of soup ideas! Most of the soups have been easy to put together, and this mushroom soup was no exception.

This soup relies heavily on the mushrooms for flavour – there’s not much else in it! I used big flat brown mushrooms, and they made the soup rather intensely, super duper mushroomy.

When I was younger, mum made a lot of soup at home, but it was always Chinese style soups. One of the only exceptions was mushroom soup, and it was pretty good. It was very similar to this one, but I suspect she added a lot more cream to hers! I was happy with the smaller amount of cream in mine though. It gave the soup just a bit of creaminess at the end but wasn't enough to make it feel heavy and rich.



Mushroom soup

Adapted from Soups

1 tablespoon butter
1 onion, finely chopped
1kg of flat brown mushrooms, wiped and roughly chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 litre vegetable stock
2 tablespoons (or more to taste) pouring cream
Salt and pepper

Melt the butter in a large saucepot over medium heat. Add the onion and cook for about five minutes or until soft. Add the garlic and cook for a couple more minutes.

Add the mushrooms and fry for another 5 minutes, then add the stock. Increase the heat and bring to the boil, before turning down to a low simmer.

Let it gently simmer until the mushrooms are soft, and blend using a stick blender until smooth. Stir the cream in and season well with salt and pepper.

Soup Sunday: Spicy lentil, potato and spinach

Gak! I'm being slack with posting Soup Sundays. After this one I still have two to post - plus I'm sure I'll have a new one this Sunday. Better get on to it!



This soup was made on one of those freezing cold evenings we've been having lately. I say this every year around this time - I can't wait until summer!

On this particular evening I felt like something spicy, filling, and it had to be vegetarian because I didn't have any meat around. Lentil soup seemed to fit the bill, and because I wanted something fairly quick to make I opted for red lentils.



It was another one of my "throw stuff in a pot" soups. In a dry pan, I gently toasted a teaspoon each of ground cumin, ground coriander, ground turmeric, chilli powder and cumin seeds for a few minutes until all nice and aromatic. Into a pot with a splash of oil went a diced onion, a couple of diced carrots and a couple of diced celery sticks. To that I added a cup of rinsed red lentils, a 400g can of tomatoes, a couple of peeled and diced potatoes and enough water to just cover everything. It simmered for 20 minutes and then I added four cubes of defrosted frozen spinach and seasoned it with salt and pepper and let it cook for another 5 minutes.

It wasn't bad for about 30 minutes worth of work and helped warm me up a little. I still can't wait until summer though!

Soup Sunday: Beef and black bean chili

So this is technically not a soup - it's a stew - but I figured that soup and stew are so similar that it could still count for Soup Sunday.

I was actually looking to buy puy lentils when I came across dried black beans. They don't seem to be very common here (I could be wrong but it was the first time I'd seen them) so I left the lentils behind and picked up a bag of black beans instead. I knew immediately what I wanted to make with them - chili!

Now apparently chili purists have a saying - "If you know beans about chili, you know chili ain't got no beans." So my chili is in no way authentic, but it was super tasty! The beans are so hearty and rich that it would be a shame to leave them out.



Beef and black bean chili

Makes a massive pot

500g dried black beans, soaked overnight
900g beef shin
6 tablespoons flour
4 teaspoons cayenne pepper (use less if you don't like things too spicy!)
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground coriander
2 teaspoons chilli powder
Olive oil
4 carrots, peeled and diced
3 celery sticks, diced
2 medium onions, peeled and sliced into chunks
3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
800g canned tomatoes
Salt + pepper + sugar if necessary
Juice of a lemon/lime

Drain and rinse the black beans. Set aside.

In a bowl, combine the flour, cayenne pepper, cumin, coriander and chilli powder. Toss the meat in the flour mixture to cover. Heat a splash of oil in a frying pan over medium heat and fry the meat in batches until brown. Transfer to a plate and set aside.

In a large pot, heat another splash of oil on medium heat, and add the onions. Cook for a few minutes until soft. Add the carrots and celery and cook for five minutes. Add the garlic and any left over flour mixture and cook for another minute.

Cut the beef into 2cm chunks and add to the vegetable mixture. Add the drained black beans, the canned tomatoes (crush them if you're using whole ones), and enough water to cover.

Let it come up to the boil, and then turn down to a simmer. Cook until beans are soft, stirring occasionally, this will probably take an hour or two (I did it in my magic pot so I don't know exactly how long).

When the beans are soft, season to taste with salt and pepper (and a teaspoon or so of sugar if necessary). Turn off the heat and stir in the lemon/lime juice.

Serve with sour cream and japalenos. I like to have a bit of crunchy salad with mine so I topped it with shredded cabbage and lettuce.

Soup Sunday: Celeriac, cauliflower and leek

The soup this week was really thanks to the efforts of my Bro. I did the directing, while he did all the grunt work. Naturally I took the glory! It's a pretty good way to cook - I highly recommend it.

I picked up a massive celeriac at the market, and the only way I know how to use it is to make soup. I hear that you can eat it raw though.... hasn't anyone tried this? I'm not so sure about it. That, and I do really like making it into soup.



No recipe for this effort - but to make it you will need:

One brother to do all the hard work
One leek
One celeriac
Half a cauliflower
2 cloves of garlic
Water / vegetable stock
Milk
Salt and pepper

Get your brother to finely slice the leek, cut the cauliflower into florets and crush the garlic.

Tell your Bro to heat a dash of oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat and add the leek, cauliflower and garlic to the pot. Let it cook for a few minutes until soft.

Meanwhile, your brother should peel and chop the celeriac into chunks. Add to the pot.

Add enough stock/water to just cover the vegetables and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to medium and gently simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes or until the vegetables are soft.

Give your brother a stick blender, and let them blend the soup until smooth.

Add a very generous dash of milk - enough to thin it slightly and add some richness. Season well with white pepper and salt.

Pat yourself on the back for a job well done - and thank your Bro.

Soup Sunday: French onion soup

Welcome to the Super Duper Long Weekend Edition of Soup Sunday! Since we had a long weekend, I decided to do a soup that was a bit more special than my “dump stuff in a pot” usuals.

I started by making beef stock the day before, roasting bones and vegetables before letting them simmer together for hours. In hindsight, I should’ve doubled the amount of bones (I had just over a kilo) for a more meaty flavour.

Sunday was spent knee deep in onions. I ended up peeling, slicing and cooking 3 kilos of onions. Yes, 3 fricken kilos. (Actually, Bro helped me peel some of the onions. Peeling onions is a pain in the arse!) I had to drag out my biggest pot to start softening all the onions – a pot that mum and dad brought us when they were last over. I don’t know what other parents buy for their children, but my parents give us pots (on a previous visit we received the magic pot).

I followed
a recipe on the Gourmet Traveller website (although I made 1 & 1/2 times the quantity). After the onions had spent the first twenty minutes in the pot with the lid on, the heat was turned down low and I let them cook for an hour and a half, stirring occasionally.



After the long cooking, the onions had collapsed into a much smaller pile, and were soft, sweet and golden. I added the stock and herbs and let it simmer for another 30-40 minutes and it was finally ready! It had only taken all afternoon.

My patience was rewarded though, it was a pretty good soup. My only complaint was that I had let it simmer down too much and I thought the soup was too thick. And I'm not sure I would make it again, it really does take a long time!



We had invited Benisa over to partake in Soup Sunday, and naturally I had to serve them dessert. I opted for apple sponge pudding.



Instead of doing one big pudding, I baked it in individual ramekins. When I portioned out the pudding batter amongst the ramekins, I realised that I didn't have enough so ended up doubling the amount of batter. Looking back, I would skip the mixed spice in the batter, and just use cinnamon. And if I'm being picky, the sponge turned out a bit firm - I may have overbaked it.

Nevertheless, if you ignore my nitpicking, it was another successful edition of Soup Sunday. The only question now is, what's coming up this week...?

Links:

French onion soup from Gourmet Traveller

Apple sponge pudding from taste.com.au

Soup Sunday: Curried pumpkin and kumara soup + onion focaccia

Gosh, I'm running a bit late with the Soup Sunday post - it's almost Sunday again! (And I have a super duper long weekend edition planned. Oh my!). The soup for this Sunday helped me use up bits and pieces - one of the reasons I love making soup! I had a few kumara (sweet potatoes), half a pumpkin, a couple of carrots and a leek. Not much by themselves, but all together they were a pot of orange goodness.

Into the pot went the sliced leek, a couple of crushed cloves of garlic, three diced kumara, the diced pumpkin half and two diced carrots. After they softened in a glug of oil for several minutes, I added enough water to just cover the vegetables. I let it simmer until soft, blended it up with the stick blender, and then seasoned with salt and pepper plus a smidge of curry powder (I love curry and pumpkin together).

The end result was pretty much pumpkin soup, but the kumara did add a touch more sweetness than usual.



I also made an onion focaccia that evening using a recipe from my baking bible, Australian Women’s Weekly “Bake”. The focaccia was great! I let my mixer do the kneading so all I really had to do was throw the ingredients in the bowl and slice the onions. I'll definitely use this recipe again as a base and try some different variations.

Onion focaccia

From Australia Women's Weekly "Bake"

2 & 1/2 cups (375g) plain flour
2 teaspoons (7g) dried yeast
1/2 cup (20g) finely grated parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons coarsley chopped fresh sage
3 teaspoons sea salt flake
1 cup (250ml) warm water
1/4 cup (60ml) olive oil
1 small white onion (80g) sliced thinly

Sift the flour into a bowl and stir in the yeast, cheese, sage and 1 teaspoon of the salt. Gradually stir in the water and 2 tablespoons of the oil. Knead for about 10 minutes until the oil is smooth and elastic.

Place the dough on an oiled tray and press into a 24cm circle. Cover with oiled plastic wrap and let it stand in a warm place until it doubles in size.

Preheat the oven to 220°C.

Combine the onion, remaining salt and remaining oil in a bowl. After the dough has finished rising, remove the plastic wrap and sprinkle the top with the onion mixture.

Bake for approximately 25 minutes. Let it cool on a wire rack.

Soup Sunday: Cauliflower and leek soup

This week’s soup should probably be Soup Monday, because we had this soup last night. But I made the soup on Sunday so technically I can still say it’s part of Soup Sunday.

The soup for this week was cauliflower and leek. I know that cauliflower isn’t the coolest kid on the block, but I love it. It's reliable, comforting, easy to cook, and yes – I do like the flavour!

I didn't follow a recipe (it was just soup after all) but to make it, I softened two sliced leeks - sliced expertly by my Bro - with a couple of crushed cloves of garlic and 3/4 head of a medium cauliflower, cut into florets. To that I added enough vegetable stock to almost cover the cauliflower and leeks, and left it to simmer until it was all soft and mashable. Into that went lots of pepper and salt, and then I blended it up with a stick blender. After it was smooth I added milk (probably about a cup or more) until I was happy with the flavour and consistency.

The soup was quite sweet with the leeks, and while it had a fair kick from the pepper (I got excited adding it in) the flavour of the cauliflower still came through. It was hearty and filling and would be perfect for a freezing winter's night.

Thanks to Alastair for being so patient while I was taking the photo. He had to suffer through my directions: "Hold the mug like this. Oh, your hands are much bigger than mine, how about you try it like this. Okay, can you tilt it down a little? A bit more. Don't spill the soup. Right, don't move. I'm almost done. Don't move. Just a couple more...."