Creamy Garlic Mushroom Soup

Happy New Year friend! If you follow my Instagram stories or read my last blog post, you know that we recently moved back to California. Hence, the long break. We arrived here on 1^st of December. In my last post, I had mentioned about our worries for 22 hours of long flight with a toddler. Guess what! To our biggest surprise, the little guy was a complete sport. He was not fussy, slept properly, didn’t eat a lot but was happy. He actually enjoyed the journey and made it just so easy for us.

It took us more than a week to come out of jetlag. I guess exhaustion and stress has a lot to do with it. Since we didn’t ship anything from India, December was mostly about shopping. It’s not easy, especially when you have to buy everything starting from a spoon. Avyan, however, loved the idea of going out every day and later assembling furniture along with his Dad.

Now, finally after a month and half, we are mostly settled with all the basic necessities. And I am ready to get back to trying new recipes, photographing food and blogging.

Last week, I bought some fabric and decided to go with that as the backdrop until I get wooden boards and paint. Photographing the food straight on the fabric was a little challenging as I love the rustic wood backdrops but my mojo was high and I wanted to give it a try. So, I made our favorite mushroom soup. It’s earthy, warms you inside out and so very soul satisfying. I overloaded it with the flavor of garlic and then drizzled a hint of shortcut herb oil, for that extra oomph!

Garlic Mushroom Soup

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

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Ingredients

for the herb oil

• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro/ parsley
• ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
• pinch of salt

for the soup

• 1 lb mushroom, I used a mix of shitake and button, thinly sliced
• 1 small white onion, finely chopped
• 7 garlic cloves, finely diced
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 teaspoon oil
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 2 cups vegetable or chicken broth
• ¼ cup cream, optional
• pinch of salt

Instructions

1. for the herb oil
2. The typical herb oil takes a lot of time as you need to allow it to infuse for at least a night. I just went with a very short cut method of whisking oil with the herb and salt and allowed it to stand until I was ready to drizzle. Or just blend it all together.

for the soup

1. In a deep saucepan, add butter and oil. Once it starts to melt, bring the heat to medium and add garlic and couple of mushroom slices. When garlic and mushroom start to change color to golden brown, carefully take out a few slices of garlic and mushroom to be used later for garnish.
2. Drop the onion and rest of the mushroom in the saucepan and give it a stir. Sprinkle salt and allow it to cook for a couple of minutes.
3. Then, add the all-purpose flour and cook for one more minute.
4. Pour the broth into the saucepan and give it a stir. Crank up the heat to high. Once it starts to boil, bring the heat down to medium and allow it to simmer for 15 minutes.
5. Once the mushroom softens, switch off the heat and blend the soup to a creamy consistency. Check for salt and add any, if required.
6. If you want to add cream to the soup, you can do it now.
7. Garnish the soup with a few slices of mushroom, garlic and a generous amount of the herb oil drizzled on top.
8. Serve warm.