MUSHROOM SOUP A LA MARIE LOUISE
8 Tablespoons oil
1 large onion
2 carrots
2 stalks celery, including leaves
5 cups water (more if needed)
1 bay leaf
1 bouillon cube
1 teaspoon dried thyme
salt and pepper to tasste
1. Cut the celery, carrots, mushrooms, and onion into thin slices. Mince the onion.
2. Pour the oil into a soup pot and heat. Add the onion. Saute the onion for 1 to 2 minutes, stirring continuously. Add the celery and carrots and continue to stir for another 2 minutes.
3. Pour the water into the pot. Add the mushrooms, bay leaf, bouillon cube, thyme, salt and pepper. Bring the soup to a boil and then let it cook over low heat, covered, for about 40 minutes. Remove the bay leaf and serve the soup hot.
TIM"S NOTES: This recipe is from a cookbook called 12 months of Monastic Soups and for this reason, these soups tend to be a little ...well...monastic and simple. They are very economical to prepare, but use the finest ingredients to get the best results. There may seem to be a lot of oil in this soup, and there is, but it is necessary to the flavor of the soup, so I suggest using a good quality olive oil. Also, use a good quality bouillon, like Knorr. My preference for this recipe is chicken bouillon, but you could probably use vegetable bouillon as well. Here again, the recipe says one bouillon cube. My Knorr bouillon is one cube per two cups of water, so I have added two cubes to this recipe, and left out the salt until checking the saltiness at the end of cooking. Also, be generous with the thyme. I think this soup is good when you are not feeling well because mushrooms and thyme supposedly have curative properties.
I forgot to tell you how many mushrooms to add! 8 ounces of fresh mushrooms. I just use plain old white mushrooms, but other varieties might be good as well?
ReplyDeleteWould it break this badly to cook the mushrooms in the oil with the onion before adding the water? And, maybe, some garlic at the same time?
ReplyDeleteI think cooking the mushrooms in the oil might be worth a shot. And garlic never hurts anything! I think the mushrooms are cooked in the soup because they lend a nice mushroomy flavor to the broth through the clow cooking. But cooking the mushrooms before hand would shorten the cooking time, though I would definitely cook the soup a little more to get the mushroom flavor into the broth. As it stands, if you'd like to add garlic to the original recipe, add it with the onion when sauteeing.
ReplyDeleteMy comment should read "through the SLOW cooking..."
ReplyDeleteSlow cooking isn't a problem. I prefer to use my crock-pot for most soupish things. Thanks.
ReplyDelete