Cost: $15
Cook Time: 1.5 hours
Soups are probably my favorite thing to make. It's so great for so many situations. You can make a big pot of soup and keep it simmering on the stove for get togethers or store the soup in the freezer for a particularly cold day. My mushroom soup is super easy to put together but, full disclosure, it's totally not good for you. Though the leeks give it a nice oniony flavor and the mushrooms give it a nice, meaty bite, there's lots of cream and bacon but ehhhh, whatever. Some days you just need a nice fatty soup when it's chilly outside.
Ingredients:
3 slices of bacon, chopped
1 tbs butter
1 medium leek, chopped
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 tbs oil
1 lb mushrooms (1/2 white cap, 1/2 baby bellas)
1 tbs flour
1/4 c white wine
2 c whipping cream
2 c chicken broth
handful of chopped parsley
1. First clean and chop the leek. Leeks are dirty little buggers (full of dirt and little bugs) so first, trim the bright green top off the leek. Then score the leek vertically -- you'll see lots of dirt. Run the trimmed leek under water. Then chop the leek to your heart's content.
2. While your freshly cut leeks are hanging out, start crisping up your bacon in a very deep stock pot. You want to render out the fat and keep the bacon crispy. Once it's crisp, take the bacon out but leave the rendered fat in.
3. Melt in your tablespoon of butter.
Saute the leek, onion and garlic. Get them a nice deep, caramel brown - give it a nice pinch of salt and a few generous turns of pepper. Then, take them out. Yes, that's right, remove the onion/leek mixture and set it aside.
5. When the mushrooms are cooked through, add the onion/leek mixture back to the pot.
At this point, anything in the pot is going to be hand blended velvety smooth. If you want it to have a little bit of texture to it, you can remove about 1/4 cup of this mixture to add in later, making it a little chunky style.
6. Meanwhile, add the flour to the vegetable mixture and saute over medium head, cooking the flour thoroughly -- a good 3-4 minutes.
Then, when the flour is incorporated and dark brown, drizzle in the wine.
7. Once the wine is reduced a bit and stopped bubbling, add in the broth and bring to a boil. Then, stream in the cream. Another pinch of salt and a few turns of pepper here. Cover and let the whole thing come to a boil. It shouldn't take too long, so clean up some of the mess you made. You'll thank yourself later.
8. And now -- immersion blend time! I have to note, almost all the cool kitchen tools I use I got from my sister for Christmas. Anyway -- blend, blend blend until it's super super smooth. If you don't have an immersion blender you could put the whole lot in a food processor but that's super messy.
Check the seasoning level here. I notice that as you add in the liquid it sometimes affects the seasoning so you may need some more salt or pepper.
Once it's smooth, you can add the reserved vegetable chunks.
Finally, top it with the reserved crisp bacon and the parsley. It makes a lot of soup, but freezes wonderfully for later!
