Friday, September 12, 2008

Magical 'shroom soup

Well, hello! Magical 'shroom catch your eye? :)

As tantalizing as that sounds, we're really talking about the soup here. Fabulous tasty mushrooms that made for a magical soup!

So, the mushroom love is stronger than ever around here - even Vodka is on mushrooms now! His holistic vet suggested, no, insisted that he start consuming a medicinal mushroom mix - beefs up the immune system, restores body balance, support natural killer cell activity, all that good stuff. In fact, there are volumes of research about medicinal mushrooms here, here ... and here. I'm sure there are a zillion other sites out there talking about similar stuff.

So, I'll eventually get around to talking more about holistic meds and pooches and immunity and chinese herbs and all that good stuff pretty soon. In the meantime, let's just focus on this simple and delightful mushroom soup :)

Deborah Madison has a yummy Cream of Mushroom Soup recipe in Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone - sounded a tad bit heavy, so I decided to rework it a bit. Obviously, the white mushrooms were replaced by criminis - so much richer and earthier, don't you think? And the cream was quickly replaced by some fabulous Quark.

Quark is pretty prevalent in Europe, but is still hard to come by in the U.S. Luckily, for us in the Pacific Northwest, we have Appel Farms in Ferndale, WA - they sell their Quark at PCC. This midly, creamy curd cheese is so flavourful and makes for a fabulous cheesecake [take that as an impending recipe warning! :)] Plus, Vodka is pretty much hooked onto it, what with its high protein content and anecdotal cancer-fighting properties when combined with flax-seed oil [take that an impending pooch-nutrition blog warning!]

Finally, a handful of fresh herbs perfectly complimented the 'shroom flavours and balanced out the earthiness.


'Shroom Soup with Curd Cheese
'Creamy shroomy goodness!

Servings: 4-6

1 lb crimini mushrooms
1 t butter
1 cup chopped leeks
4 garlic cloves - chopped
4 sprigs of lemon thyme - stripped from the stems
1 T flour
1 quart of water (OR water+nonfat milk OR mushroom stock)
1/2-1 cup nonfat Quark cheese
Finely chopped parsley and chives
1 T goat cheese
salt and freshly ground pepper


Mix up the goat cheese with the chives and parsley and set aside while the soup is being made. This gives the goat cheese enough time to absorb the flavours of the herbs.

Coarsely chop the lot of mushrooms, after setting a few aside for garnish (if desired).
Melt the butter in a soup pot and lightly sauté the leeks, garlic and thyme in it for a few minutes.
Throw in 1/2 t salt and 1/2 cup of water and cook covered over medium heat for 3-4 minutes.

Raise the heat, throw in the chopped mushrooms and cook for 4-5 minutes.
Now, stir in the flour, add the water (or stock) and bring to a boil.
Lower the heat and simmer, partially covered, for about 15-20 minutes.

Coarsely puree the soup, return it to the pot and stir in the Quark cheese. Season with salt and pepper while keeping the soup warm.

If you set aside some mushrooms for garnish, now is a good time to sauté them over high heat in a bit of butter - it should take 4-5 minutes for the mushrooms to get colored and mildly crispy [this is seriously tasty stuff!]

Check for seasoning before serving topped with the herbed goat cheese.



Opinion?

A plain-looking soup that explodes with flavour! I can see this being a great winter warmer when made with cream, but the lighter, thinner version was the perfect warmer for a rainy Seattle evening :)


I'd love to say I grew the mushrooms, but I obviously didn't! But I did get the chives and parsley from my veggie patch! Which means I get to ship this post off to Wiffy of Noob Cook for this round of Grow Your Own [that happy event started by Andrea!]

15 comments:

Finla said...

Yumm that bowl of mushroom soup looks so delicious. Here it is raining so this bowl of hot soup will be really a welcome

Nate @ House of Annie said...

What is that bread next to the soup? some kind of lavash?

Pavani said...

Hi it really looks great and colour is awesome

Laavanya said...

That looks lovely.. I make it similarly and posted last year - don't miss the cream at all. I swirl in some light sourcream/cream cheese if I need a touch of creaminess.

amna said...

hmm curd cheese looks like an interesting addition..

KayKat said...

Hey nate-n-annie!

Those are flaxseed tortillas - Costco carries them, probably Whole Foods too. I really like them - high in protein and they make for great wraps!

Anonymous said...

woah what a lovely dish... and what better way to top this lovely mushroom soup, than with the freshest, most organic home grown chives and parsley ;) Thank you for your wonderful GYO submission! :)

news.linq.in said...

Hey that's a very rare name given to the Dish & m awaiting some more rare dish preparation.

Rachel said...

Tantalizing indeed!!

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Srikitchen said...

that looks inviting! soup is really tempting! come and join in the chicken event going in my blog!

anudivya said...

Krishna, my god... I realized it was you after seeing Vodka's pic. I have been to your blog before, but never even occured to me it was you.
Keep in touch... (to brush up your memory, we met during Memorial day weekend) I can send you an email if you still dont remember :)

Andrea Meyers said...

Your mushroom soup looks delicious! I've never heard of Quark before this post, so I'll have to do some investigating to find some in our area. Thanks for the tip!

Coffee and Vanilla said...

Oh, that sounds sooo good. I would never think of adding curd cheese... what a good idea!

Have a wonderful day and don't forget to check out chocolate-making kit giveaway on my site :)

Margot

Doreen - Banquette said...

Looks great! Makes me hungry just looking at it.