Mushroom Soup

Well, Its winter time in Rotterdam and all i crave for is soup every evening. Back in India as i mentioned in my posts before that mom used to prepare almost every evening. i had trained my maids with various recipes.

this is the first time i ever made mushroom soup. i have bought pumpkin also, shall try making pumpkin soup tomorrow... So i googled for cream of mushroom soup. read several recipes. the one which seemed more promising to the taste i was looking for was http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/cream_of_mushroom_soup/.

All the ingredients were at home, so life is easy, i don't have to look out for any ingredients out in such winter... yeah!!!

I changed was the source of the stock used in the recipe. being veg. I substituted the chicken stock as mentioned in the recipe with veg stock. I had put milk instead of cream, so of course the consistency differed, and added 1 tbsp of cream in the end. My soup was little less thick as compared to what the recipe suggests.

And also, had 250 gms of mushrooms as against the recipe states the measurement of ingredients as per 500Gms of mushroom, so i halved the measurement of other ingredients accordingly!

Ingredients:

250 gms regular white mushrooms, cleaned, quartered or sliced

1/2 Tbsp lemon juice

1/2 Tbsp unsalted butter

1 Tbsp minced shallots

1/2 tbsp chopped fresh thyme or 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

1/2 bay leaf

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

1 cups Milk

3/4 veg. stock ( i used maggie stock cubes)

1 teaspoon cornstarch dissolved in 1 Tbsp water

1 tbsp cream

Minced parsley for garnish

Method:

1 In a food processor, coarsely chop mushrooms and lemon juice.

2 Melt butter in (4-5 quart) sauce pan and lightly sauté shallots on medium heat. Add mushrooms, thyme and bay leaf, sauté over moderate heat for 10-15 minutes, or until the liquid that is released from the mushrooms disappears.

3 Add salt, pepper, milk and stock and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

4 Add cornstarch and simmer for 10 minutes and cream, stirring constantly.

Correct seasoning and add more lemon juice to taste.

Gazpacho!

Hey Its Summer!!!!!

Its Summer in India right now and i just need some cool soothing yet nutritious. And what comes on my mind is just GAZPACHO!!! (A Spanish Cold Soup). Aah I love tomatoes .. tomato juices .. virgin merry, bloody merry.... well my no curry goes without tomatoes but only white curries miss tomatoes... in my cooking :( .. Why don't we have White Tomatoes???? WISH !!!

Anyways! how i learnt Gazpacho! well interesting story behind it! i was off alcohol when we went to a restaurant @ Clark quay in Singapore. While everyone else who went with me sipping Sangria (My Most Fav. cocktail) and i was waiting for my cold soup to come! i had no clue at that time what gazpacho is my fellow friend just said order it! its nice cold tomato juice! i was thinking, what the hell? they would just serve me a tomato juice out of a can! but when it came ... i was impressed! it was Fresh!! and the Garnishing was looking so yummy! it was Chilled!!! And the word came out of my mouth when i had my first sip was any guess?? "WOW" (m decent:P)and i ordered for second one!

Well, it was expensive! so i thought y not to search the recipe n make it on my own. googled for it! in some sites the the recipe was complicated ( I'm not criticizing what i meant that either ingredients were not available with me at that time or i had not even heard of any particular ingredient!) so, i took the basic idea and thought to improvise it on my own way! so here it is!

Tomatoes in large numbers.(12 makes for 3 glasses but again depends on the size of tomatoes. judge it yourself)

Onion - 1 small (1/2 if u have big onion)

cucumber - 1/3 of whole.

capsicum - 1 if small (half if big)

red bell pepper - 1 if small (half if big)

vinegar 3 tsp

salt to taste

sugar - 1tsp

For Garnishing finely chop the cucumber, red and green bell-peppers, spring onion, croutons (optional)

Blend the above ingredients in a blender and stain it with fine soup stainer. and put in refrigerate it 2 hours.

Garnish it small amount of finely chopped the cucumber,onion & capsicum and a small stick of celery .

ENJOY it in this Summer!!!! well all the summers! :) its a bliss!