Maxmax5's Homemade Mushroom Soup

These days people are 'calculative' towards the food especially on calories. No doubt many hi cal foods are delicious, i.e. fat, starch, but that does not mean without hi-cal food/ingredient, we cant cook a good one. In this post, im going to show you how to cook Mushroom Soup without using cream (hi fat content). 

Ingredient for 6 pax:

• Button Mushroom ............................................ 600g
• Sweet Onion .................................................... 3
• Garlic ................................................................ 5 cloves
• Fresh Thymes & Rosemary ............................. 2 - 4 spring each
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper  ............. seasoning
• rice .................................................................. a handful
• Sunflower Seed Oil  ........................................ 3 tbsp
• flour ................................................................ 2 tbsp
• Chicken Stock / Water .................................... 2 litre

Methods:

1. Preheat oven at 200 degree C / 392 degree F 
2. Wash and halve the white button mushroom
3. Lightly season the mushroom with salt and pepper and some thymes leave (no stem)
4. Into the oven for 25-30 min. (Reduce moisture means intensify the mushroom flavour)
5. Meanwhile, on med-high heat, add oil and sweet onion, brown the onion, 10 - 15 min. Beware do not burn them. 
6. Add in garlic and sautee for another 3 min then add flour and continue sautee. Flour will thicken the soup later but need to sautee it until the colour change from white to lightly brown. 
7. Once everything is brown, add in the mushroom together with the mushroom water in the tray from oven (if any). then add in rice and stock/water.  (rice will give more texture to the soup after blended)
8. Lastly the Bouquet Garni (herbs tighten on butcher twine). For this recipe, i use Rosemary and Thymes. Immerse it into the soup. 
9. Boil for 30 min with lid semi open and then remove the Bouquet Garni before using an immersive blender to puree the soup.
10. Done.  The texture should be thick and full of blended solids like mushroom and rice. 

Useful Tips:

• If you have no oven, remove step#4 and sautee the seasoned mushroom after the onion is brown. During the process, the mushroom will give up its water and you will need to sautee until the water dry out, usually 10-15min.
• Serve with dash of truffle/olive oil, topped with sautee mushroom and garlic bread. 
• Add cream for a lighter flavour but not advisable if you are concerning the cal :P 

Light season with Thymes, salt and pepper before baking

Shrooms are baking

Browning caramelised sugar in the food to yield more flavours

A "handful" of rice. Add solids and improve texture. No one like watery soup

Bouquet Garni into the boiling soup. 30 min. 

Blend with Immersive Blender and serve.