Mushroom soup at Taj Hotel is just too good. I have always tried to imitate the same but couldn’t do so. This time I caught hold of a book having this soup recipe. While I was reading it, I observed the unusual variety of wild mushrooms used in this soup. You might get alot of information about Mushrooms on Wikipedia. But here is what I discovered by going to the grocery store.
Edible Mushrooms are of two types, fresh and dried. There is a variety of edible mushrooms available in the market. Mostly found are the button mushrooms which we use in everyday cooking. But there are mushrooms like Shitake, Enoki, Enokitake, Buna-Shimeji, Oyster, Bunapi-Shimeji, Morels, Porcini and Chanterelles. These variety are mostly used for Chinese and Japanese cuisine. To no surprise the biggest cultivator of these mushrooms is China.
I required Porcini, Chanterelles and Morels for this soup. Others were easy to find but these were exclusive. I went to search all over but out of all I just found one vendor which could provide me with these mushrooms. The shopkeeper told me that the demand is very less for these mushrooms. It is only the five-star hotels which pick them up. Also, to your knowledge these mushrooms specifically porcini, chanterelles and morels are super-expensive. To my amusement the price was about Rs. 18000 per Kilo (USD 360/kilo). I still bought little what was required for making this soup. It was expensive but actually worth it!!:)
Creamy Yummy Soup!
So the special ingredients used for this soup cappuccino are:
30 gm dried porcini mushrooms
30 gm dried chanterelle mushrooms
15 gm dried morel mushrooms
1 tbsp olive oil
1 red onion, sliced
6 garlic cloves, crushed
20 gm celery, sliced
20 gm leeks, sliced
250 gm button mushrooms
1 tsp peppercorns
2 sprigs thyme
100 ml white wine
2 tsp butter
salt to taste
Method:
- Soak the dried mushrooms in 2 L (3.5 pt) warm water for an hour.
- Heat olive oil in a thick-bottomed stock pot, saute onion and garlic for a minute.
- Add celery, leeks, button mushrooms, peppercorns and thyme and saute for 2 minutes.
- Add white wine.
- Add mushrooms and soaking water and bring it to boil.
- Simmer for 45 minutes, skimming the froth from the surface. Cool.
- Blend using a stick blender and strain through a fine chinois.
- Return the soup to the fire and add butter and seasoning.
- Serve hot in cappucino cups. Drink Hot!
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