The Real Mushroom Soup
One of the most popular Jamie Oliver recipes here on Cookstr!
Updated February 17, 2019 
From the Editor: Chefs and foodies looking for a unique and rich flavor to play with will adore making this mushroom soup. Easily created with just about any type of mushroom (including portobello, shitake, and porcini), this soup is both savory and creamy. Serve it at your next dinner party to impress your guests. Yummy soups like this one can be served as a starter or combined with sanwiches for a main course.
When I first moved to London I worked in the Neal Street Restaurant in Covent Garden. It was famous for its wild mushrooms, and my mate Gennaro used to go out every day during mushroom season to find them. It was in this restaurant that I tasted a real mushroom soup for the first time. Those awful tins of mushroom soup that we’ve all tasted just became a distant memory! The nice thing about nearly all mushrooms is that, if cooked correctly, they do have wonderful flavour. If you were to use a field of portabello mushrooms to make a soup, just adding a tiny bit of dried porcini into the base would make the whole thing more luxurious.
Serves6
Cooking MethodSauteeing
CostSplurge
Total Timeunder 1 hour
OccasionCasual Dinner Party, Formal Dinner Party
Recipe CourseHot Appetizer, Main Course
Dietary ConsiderationEgg-free, Gluten-free, Halal, Kosher, Peanut Free, Soy Free, Tree Nut Free, Vegetarian
EquipmentBlender, Food Processor
MealDinner
MoodFestive
Taste and TextureCreamy, Herby, Rich, Savory, Umami
Type of DishHot Soup, Soup
Ingredients
- A small handful of dried porcini
- Olive oil
- 600g/1lb 6oz mixed fresh wild mushrooms (chanterelles, girolles, trompettes de la mort, shitake, oyster), cleaned and sliced
- 2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely sliced
- 1 red onion, peeled and finely chopped
- A knob of butter
- A handful of fresh thyme, leaves picked
- Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1 litre/1 ¾ pints chicken or vegetable stock
- A handful of fresh flat-leaf parsley, leaves picked and roughly chopped
- 2 tablespoons mascarpone cheese
- 1 lemon
- Optional: truffle oil
More Dinner Recipes from Jamie Oliver
One of our must popular celebrity chefs here on Cookstr.com, Jamie Oliver is known for his truly tasty and very servible recipes. Check out even more dinner recipes from Jamie Oliver's cookbook, Jamie's Dinners.
1. Tagliatelle with Spinach, Mascarpone, and Parmesan
2. Summer Tray-Baked Salmon
3. Best Lamb Cutlets with Special Basil Sauce
4. Quick Tomato Macaroni and Cheese
5. Quick Tomato Macaroni and Cheese
Instructions
-
Place the porcini in a small dish, add boiling water just to cover, and leave to soak. Get a large casserole-type pan nice and hot, then add a good couple of lugs of olive oil and your fresh mushrooms. Stir around very quickly for a minute, then add your garlic, onion, butter and thyme and a small amount of seasoning. After about a minute you’ll probably notice moisture cooking out of the mushrooms and at this point add half of your porcini, chopped up, and the rest left whole. Strain the soaking liquid to remove any grit, and add it to the pan. Carry on cooking for about 20 minutes until most of the moisture disappears.
-
Season to taste, and add your stock. Bring to the boil and simmer for around 20 minutes. I usually remove half the soup from the pan and whizz it up to a purée at this point, then pour it back in, adding the parsley and mascarpone, and seasoning carefully to taste.
Notes
You can serve this soup as you like, but there are a few things to remember when finishing it off. Mix together a pinch of salt and pepper with the zest of one lemon and the juice of half of it, then spoon a little of this into the middle of the soup. When you go to eat it, stir it in and it gives a wonderful flavour. Other things you can consider are little slices of grilled crostini put into the bottom of the bowls before the soup is poured over. Or you could even quickly fry some nice-looking mushrooms – like girolles, chanterelles or oysters – and sprinkle these on top of the soup. If I was going to use truffle oil, then I would use it on its own – a few drips on the top just before serving.
Tips for Cooking with Mushrooms from Cookstr.com
If you're new to gourmet cooking, cooking with mushrooms can be a little overwhelming. These funky and fun little fungi can be intimidating. Their unique texture and flavor means they're a little more complicated to add to a dish.
Check out our cooking with mushroom tips below.
-
Store for no more than 3-4 days.
After that, mushrooms can get a little icky. When mushrooms start to expire, they can get be a bit slimy and shrivel up. Make sure to have a plan for mushrooms when you buy them. -
Store in paper bags.
Shrink wrap can make mushrooms spoil a lot faster as it holds in moisture. A cool dark place (like a paper bag in the fridge) is needed to keep mushrooms fresh. -
Don't wash your mushrooms.
If your mushrooms are dirty, pat them clean with a damp cloth. Mushrooms are spongy, meaning they soak up any and all water. Running them under the sink will make them fill up with water.
2004 Jamie Oliver
