With poor Lolz feeling under the weather I agreed to make her a Sunday afternoon soup. We weren't able to make our minds up on which one though so Lolz rigged up a basic lottery system involving a hat and three bits of paper with "tomato", "mushroom" and "squash" written on them. And rigged is probably the operative word as, surprise surprise, I picked the dreaded mushroom option. My demand for a recount was ignored, and, with some loud and suggestive coughing on Lolz's part, I was "encouraged" into the kitchen to begin making our lunch.
My problem with mushrooms is not just the taste - they actually offend pretty much all my senses. I can't stand the smell. They look weird. They even feel like they are alive, like a creature that you would expect to find under a rock. Basically wrong on all kind of levels. I was glad to finally get them in the pan and get them cooked. Alongside the soup we made some "croutes" and in doing so established, several times, that our smoke detector was working well. Fortunately, no major damage was done and with the soup successfully handblended, we plated up.
In an attempt to keep calories under control, the recipe uses basmati rice instead of cream. It kind of works, but maybe at the expense of a bit of richness. It was also quite delicate on the mushroom flavour - for me this was great, but mushroom fans may prefer something a bit more powerful. The croutes were really good - mushrooms are obviously not to my tastes, but apple, walnut and stilton is a classic combination which go really nicely with the lightly charred, garlicky ciabatta.
Lolz gave the dish 8/10. She moaned that the soup was underseasoned and wasn't keen on the walnuts or apples. Difficulty rating 2/10 - extremely straightforward.
I found that the look of the soup was a bit off-putting....mine was just about black. I wondered if maybe next time I should remove the black part of the portabello to lighten the colour a bit...otherwise I loved this dish. I have no problem with mushrooms, but my mother hates them with a passion, and will pick them out of spaghetti sauce or soup (or just refuse to eat the offending mushroom-laden food).
ReplyDeletehttp://cookingjamie.blogspot.ca/2012/11/15-minute-meals-mushroom-soup-croutes.html
Thanks for all your comments! Being not much of a mushroom fan, I couldn't tell you what would make it less black - I didn't trim my mushrooms at all when adding them to the pan.
ReplyDelete