Porcini Mushroom Soup with Vegetables and Vermicelli
Soup is exceptionally good for you. And mushroom soup is quick and easy to make, too. Anyone who disagrees is welcome to stop by the nearest fast-food place on the way to work.
As a rule, a hot soup means a broth: from vegetables, poultry or meat, mushrooms, fish and so on. Once fireproof cookware came along, eating hot liquid dishes became a firm habit. It's usually thought that a soup should have roughly equal parts liquid and everything else. That said, broths have more liquid and thick soups less. It's worth mentioning that for quite a long time the cooking liquid wasn't eaten at all, even though it holds much of the goodness and flavor.
For some reason, soup is considered a food of settled life. In my view, that's not quite right. Just think of the wonderful soups of Asian cuisines. The famous Hungarian bogracs was originally part of nomadic cooking. Nomads carried their cauldrons and kettles with them and happily varied their meals with soups at every camp. Remember Kazakh beshbarmak, kespe and nauryz kozhe.
The variety of soups is simply astonishing. I read somewhere that there are up to 150 types of soup in the world! The differences between soups of the same type mostly show up in cooking details and the specifics of a particular recipe. Even Ukrainian borscht varies a lot, not just from region to region but from one cook to the next.
During the season of quiet forest hunting, as foraging is called, it's practically a sin not to make soup with mushroom broth while the mushrooms are still fresh and untouched. This kind of soup is very popular in European cuisines. And the same recipe made with different mushrooms tastes completely different.
We gathered fresh slippery jacks, bay boletes and porcini. It has become a tradition to make a morning soup from fresh porcini. We always set aside one or two porcini with dark caps for it. That's just how it's done.
Ingredients
2 servings
- Porcini mushrooms 200 g
- Carrot 1
- Onion 1
- Potatoes 1
- Vermicelli 3 tbsp
- Parsley 3-4 sprigs
- Spices: salt, black peppercorns, allspice berries, bay leaf to taste
Step-by-step recipe
- Which mushrooms to use is up to you. But I do insist on fresh porcini. Only they give you such a tasty, clear mushroom broth that tickles your nose.
- Porcini are called “white mushrooms” in Ukrainian not because their flesh is white, but because they don't darken when cooked. They're perfect for boiling.
- Wash the porcini, cut out any worm holes (it happens, though rarely) and clean off pine needles, leaves and soil. Cut the mushrooms into large pieces, about 3 cm.
- Bring half a liter of water to a boil and add the mushrooms. As soon as it comes back to a boil, wait 1 minute (or even less) and drain. Strictly speaking, you can skip this: the first cooking liquid holds most of the flavor and aroma. But then the broth will be dark. At the very least, you can just pour boiling water over the mushrooms briefly. Again, this step is up to you.
- In a pot, bring 1 liter of water to a boil and add a little salt, a bay leaf, 1-2 allspice berries and 4-5 black peppercorns. Better not to grind the pepper so it doesn't overpower the other flavors. The pepper should only set off the taste and aroma of the broth.
- As soon as the water boils, add the mushrooms and cook for 5 minutes.
- Peel the onion, carrot and potatoes. Cut all the vegetables into large, even cubes, half the size of the mushroom pieces.
- After 5 minutes, add all the vegetables to the pot. Cook for 15 minutes from when it returns to a boil. The potatoes will be done, and if the carrot seems a bit firm, cook a little longer. You'll often see advice to fry the onion and carrot in vegetable oil first. That's perfectly fine, but I prefer simply boiled soup vegetables. Also, I wouldn't add parsley root, celery root and so on to the broth: they're too aromatic, and in general, keep the spices to a minimum!
- Season the broth with salt to taste, but don't overdo it.
- Add the finest vermicelli you can find to the soup. Fine Italian vermicelli is ideal; it cooks in about 3 minutes.
- As soon as the vermicelli is cooked, add finely chopped parsley (leaves only) and take the soup off the heat right away.
- Serve the soup immediately, while hot.
| Serves: | 2 servings |
| Calories: | 26 |
| Prep: | 10 mins |
| Cook: | 30 mins |
| Total: | 40 mins |
| Category: | Soups |
| Cuisine: | European |
| Rating: |
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4.9
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