When I was young – and even into my 20’s if any home cook gave much thought to mushroom soup – what came to mind was Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom. In the 1960’s the canned stuff was all over the place in casseroles, the 60’s being the era of the casserole! I never made a home made version because the canned stuff was just THERE, and it was inexpensive. I fixed the soup – as a soup – now and then too, as well as many a can of Campbell’s tomato soup, made with milk. My mother and dad were crazy about Campbell’s tomato soup. Saturday lunch was often a bowl of it with a toasted cheese sandwich.
Well, here it is 50 years later, and I almost never buy Campbell’s soups any time. (In all honesty, though, I do occasionally buy it because it’s called for in one or more casseroles that I still make – but I usually buy the healthy version; still Campbell’s, though.) Their soups are so full of sodium and probably unhealthy fats. A couple of times in years past I’ve made a home made mushroom soup, but wasn’t particularly crazy about it, so it wasn’t repeated.
Then, you’ll remember a week or so ago I mentioned making a soup from scratch – it was a salmon soup, and I couldn’t find the cookbook. I’d gone to Eat Your Books and a recipe in my own cookbook collection intrigued me. I winged it that time because I couldn’t locate the book anywhere in my house! A week or so later I found it, along with 3-4 other cookbooks on an odd shelf (I’ll blame my cleaning lady – I think she was trying to help and she put the small stack on a shelf in my upstairs office – not a shelf that holds cookbooks, which is why I couldn’t find it). Anyway, it was a cookbook I’d never cooked from. I sat down and read through it and found several recipes I wanted to try.
FYI: The New Covent Garden Soup Company is a small London firm that grew over the course of 20+ years because they produce a superior product. They use the best quality ingredients, and they found a way to market (through grocery stores in England, I think – any of my British readers, correct me if I’m wrong) their fresh soups. They’re packaged in those waxed cardboard containers (like buttermilk and some milk here), and they have a definite shelf life. They’ve published 3 cookbooks over the years, and as I mentioned before, I bought the one I have, the last time we were visiting London – it was laying on a counter in the book dept. at Harrod’s. The book – The New Covent Garden Soup Company’s Book of Soups
The headnotes to this recipe in the book say: A simple but classic mushroom soup that is loved by everyone. This is one of the first recipes ever created by Caroline Jeremy, now our Marketing Director, in the kitchen of her flat when she was working as a freelance recipe developer for the soup company back at the very beginning in 1987. The recipe was actually poached by Caroline from an old boyfriend who was obsessed with cooking. They eventually split up because he would not let her near the stove.
Since I think I’m pretty accomplished at making soups, I have no quibble with changing a recipe to suit me, and in this case I did also. Here’s what I changed: (1) I used mushroom stock rather than “vegetable stock”; (2) I added some dried mushrooms soaked in water for extra flavor; (3) I used more mushrooms than the recipe called for (24 ounces rather than 18); (4) I added just a little jot of cream and a little pat of butter at the end; and (5) I didn’t sauté the 2nd mushroom batch in butter – I just threw them into the simmering soup – and that’s why I added the butter on top. Also, I was supposed to add Italian parsley – both IN the soup and as a garnish – but I didn’t have any. That’s why I added the thinnest little sliver of butter on top. I’ve left the parsley in the recipe, though – next time I’ll hopefully have some!
We loved it. It ended up in the frig for a couple of days before I served it – while we ate up left overs. So the other night I took some left over ribeye steak, cut it into tiny slivers, toasted a slice of good country bread, toasted it, layered on the meat, some sliced tomatoes and a bunch of shredded cheddar cheese, broiled it, and served that as an open-faced sandwich along with the mushroom soup. My DH said “wow, this is good.” After dinner he asked “is there more?” I said yes. The recipe is a keeper, I think. I wouldn’t change a thing from my revised recipe – except to add the parsley.
What’s GOOD: the mushroom flavor is definitely “there.” This is not a plain old ordinary creamy soup with some mushrooms thrown in. It has a perfect cream-consistency (it is thickened with flour, and more than you might think). I liked having something to chew (the mushrooms added in later) – there isn’t anything else to chew since the rest of the soup is pureed. Definitely a keeper.
What’s NOT: really nothing at all. It does take awhile to prep all the mushrooms – my DH bought one of those big boxes of them at Costco (that’s why I used 24 ounces, not the 18 called for). If you want to make this exactly as I have, you’ll have to seek out the mushroom base (I found it at a specialty cookware and food store called Surfas – Custom Culinary Mushroom Base – a 1 lb. jar. It is available online from Surfas. I’m glad to have this available in my frig because I think mushrooms add a great umami flavor to soups, whether it’s a mushroom-centric soup or something else.
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Cream of Mushroom Soup with Parsley & Garlic
Recipe By: Adapted from the New Covent Garden Soup Company Book of Soups, 1998
Serving Size: 6
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 large yellow onion — chopped
2 cloves garlic — minced
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
5 cups broth — (I used mushroom base concentrate) or use beef or vegetable
12 ounces button mushrooms — chopped
1 ounce dried mushrooms — (mixed variety) soaked in hot water for 5 minutes [my addition]
3 ounces hot water — (to soak mushrooms, discard after soaking)
3 tablespoons Italian parsley — chopped
12 ounces button mushrooms — (yes, another amount) neatly sliced or chopped
2 cups half and half
3 tablespoons heavy cream — [my addition]
2 tablespoons unsalted butter — added in at the last
Italian parsley for garnish
Notes: If you have shiitake, oyster, or brown mushrooms, do use them since they have more flavor. Otherwise, button mushrooms worked just fine. The mushroom base I used is Custom Culinary Mushroom Base Gold Label available from Surfas online.
1. In a large pot melt butter over medium heat and add onions and garlic. Saute over low heat until onions are cooked, but not browned at all.
2. Add the flour and stir to coat all the onions. Add the stock slowly at first, stirring constantly so you don’t get lumps, then add all of it, stir until it’s a smooth saucy consistency. Add the parsley and fresh mushrooms. Lastly add the dried mushrooms that have been soaked in water and drained (discard the water). Simmer over low heat for 10-15 minutes until the mushrooms are fully cooked.
3. Pour this mixture into a blender and carefully (in 2 batches if necessary) puree until it’s very smooth. Return mixture to the soup pot, add the nicely sliced mushrooms and simmer over low heat for 4-5 minutes until the mushrooms are cooked through. Add the half and half and heat through (do not boil), then stir in butter or place a thin sliver on the soup when serving. Taste for seasonings (white pepper?). Ladle into soup bowls and garnish with Italian parsley. If you used a soup base concentrate it may have sufficient salt and you may need no additional.
Per Serving: 284 Calories; 18g Fat (55.8% calories from fat); 7g Protein; 26g Carbohydrate; 3g Dietary Fiber; 55mg Cholesterol; 44mg Sodium.
. Peterson, indeed, makes some splendid soups in this book. None of them 2-3 ingredients, however. But I like that. I used his recipe as my inspiration. A few ingredients I didn’t have, so I just punted. I changed a bit the way it was made because I believe that the vegetables you put into the beginning of a soup give out and off all the flavor and texture they have to the broth. And rather than starting with fresh meat (like shanks or stew meat) I wanted to use the leg of lamb bones (that did have a bit of meat attached, but I’d cut off most of the meat – it was added in at the end of the soup making, since it was all cooked). And I prefer soups with more than just beans or lentils – I want more veggies.
and used that as a guide. It’s just that the recipe I consulted had you strain out all the vegetables – therefore it only contained the pasta. Period. Too boring for me! Its recipe also called for starting with a whole, raw chicken, and obviously I wasn’t doing that, so I had to make a variation, but I kept true to nearly all of the rest of it. I sautéed onion and celery in olive oil, then added bay leaves, dried dill, chicken broth and let that simmer for awhile. Then I added small pieces of thin capellini pasta and cooked it until barely tender. Meanwhile I started on the egg-lemon sauce. This is essential to the soup, and really gives it its true lemony flavor. In a blender I combined fresh squeezed lemon juice, whole eggs (I had very small eggs, so I used 4 instead of 3) and whizzed it up until it was very, very frothy. That’s an essential part of this soup too – once you combine it in the soup pot, you want to retain some of that eggy froth. By the time I took a picture of it, though (above) the froth had all disappeared. Anyway, you add some cornstarch dissolved in a little bit of water and lastly a cup or so of the hot broth out of the soup pot – this is done to 
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