Gary's Wild Mushroom Soup

 Serves 4

Image by Laustkehlet from Pixabay

1 TBS olive oil

500 g wild mushrooms, half sliced and the rest roughly chopped*

2 -3 cloves of garlic, chopped

pinch of fresh thyme OR 1/4 tsp dried thyme

salt and pepper

2 TBS butter

2 TBS flour

4 cups veggie stock or chicken stock

1/4 cup cream

METHOD

• In a large pot, combine the olive oil; mushrooms; garlic; thyme and a pinch of salt and pepper. Sauté over medium heat until all the mushroom moisture has been released and evaporated. The mushrooms should be dark brown now.
• Add butter, stir for 2 minutes and add flour and stir for a few minutes. Don't let it burn!
• Add the stock slowly until absorbed. Bring to a simmer and stir in the cream.
• Serve with chopped fresh parsley or thyme and some nice crusty bread or croutons
• If preferred, blend with a stick blender until smooth

*Suitable mushrooms: Amanita rubescens (blushers), Agaricus arvensis (horse mushroom), Suillus bellinii (pine bolete), Suilllus granulatus (granular stalk bolete/weeping bolete). 

I have not tried it with Suillus luteus (Slippery jacks) yet, but I suppose it will work. It might make the soup quite dark since this mushroom goes black when cooked. Remember to remove the "skin" on the cap, especially for Suillus mushrooms. Small fresh ones are fine to leave the "skin" on. Also don't use the stems! It's tough, the flavour is in the caps!

I have made this with pine bolete and granular stalk bolete and horse mushrooms - delicious! I have also made it with pine rings (Lactarius deliciosus). Also very delicious. 

*If preferred or needed, mix in a little bit of shop bought mushrooms like Portobella or white button mushrooms if you don't have a lot of wild mushrooms. 

*Should you be lucky to have dried wild mushroom stock powder, you can add a bit of this as well. Constitute in a bit of warm water and then add to the soup.