Mushroom Soup

Happy holidays, everyone ! With the cold weather outside, you can warm up with a cuppa soup, cozying up in a couch. Or you can serve this soup along with your Christmas feast. Mushroom soup was one soup i loved as a kid and still a favourite. Try this homemade mushroom soup and let me know what you think.

Ingredients

1 +1 cups - Chopped Button Mushrooms

1/2 cup - Shallots, chopped

6 flakes - Garlic, crushed

2 tbsp - Maida / All purpose flour

1 cup - Milk

1 - Bay leaf

3 cups - Chicken stock Or water

1 to 1.5 tsp - Lemon juice

Salt and Pepper to taste

1 to 2 tbsp - Cream / half and half

Garnishing

5 - Shallots, diced

1 tbsp - Chopped Parsley

Method

1 ) Heat 2 tbsp to 3 tbsp butter in a big pan. Fry the shallots for garnishing to a brown and crisp on medium heat. Drain off the butter and set aside. Now add 1/2 cup chopped shallots and garlic and fry till they soften. Now add 1 cup of chopped mushroom to the pan and fry till they soften and starts to fry a bit. Now stir in 2 tbsp of flour, mix well and cook for 3 minutes.

2 ) Remove pan from fire and gradually add the 3 cups chicken stock or water, bay leaf, salt and pepper powder to taste and bring to a boil. Now simmer, cover and cook for 15 minutes. Turn the stove off and cool a bit.

3 ) Sieve or liquidize and strain the soup.If you are liquidizing the soup, add the contents to a blender to liquidise only after the soup has cool down a bit. Otherwise there is all possibility of the hot contents splashing out of the blender. It happened to me and i learnt my lesson, so just a word of caution here.

4 ) Pour the strained soup back into the pan and keep it back on fire. Now add 1 cup milk, 1 to 1.5 cup water and 1 cup chopped mushrooms. Bring to a boil and adjust salt and pepper to taste. Simmer and cook covered for 10 minutes. Turn off the stove. Now add lemon juice, stir in and then cream.

5 ) Garnish with fried shallots and parsley.

Serve hot and enjoy. You can reheat the soup, but do not bring it to a boil.

To clean Mushroom : Mix a spoonful of cornflour in water and wash mushroom with this. This will remove all the surface mud.