Much Mush Soup

I made a mushroom soup at the weekend. It's based on one I had in a vegetarian cookbook many years ago, but I've lost the book and forgotten the details, so it's slightly not the same.

The basic principle here is that (a) mushrooms are very quick to cook and so this soup is ideal for rushed weekend lunches; and (b) you need to extract the maximum flavour from the mushrooms in the shortest available time.

I used one of those big el cheapo Value boxes of mushrooms - the kind supermarkets package - the only thing "wrong" with these mushrooms is purely cosmetic. And since you're going to chop them up into tiny little pieces, who cares?

1 tbsp olive or groundnut oil
1 red onion, finely chopped
big box "value" mushrooms, finely chopped
handful of porcini dried mushrooms
200 ml boiling water
1 pint stock
juice of 1 lemon
3 desertspoons creme fraiche

First, set the dried mushrooms to soak in the hot water. Meanwhile, warm the oil in a large saucepan and add the finely chopped onions. I use the Magimix to chop both the onion and then the mushrooms. Gently fry the onion until it turns transparent, then stir in the mushrooms in batches. Cook for a few minutes, then add the stock, and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat, add the soaked porcini and the water they soaked in, and set to simmer for 10-15 minutes.

Meanwhile, juice the lemon. When the soup has simmered long enough, blend it in batches (use the food processor again since you already have) and return to the heat. Stir in the lemon juice, wait a couple of minutes for the soup to warm through, then add the creme fraiche and serve immediately with hot buttered toast.

My estimate is that the whole recipe is no more than 6 points, so a generous bowl of it is 2 points or less.