Last night I made the best mushroom soup. I can say it's the best because it's not my recipe. The first time I made and tasted this soup was about 6 years ago at a church dinner. I volunteered to help in the kitchen - I like kitchen work - and was tasked with making the soup. The name on the recipe is "Hungarian mushroom soup" but it is beautiful and Raelene gave it to me, hence my renaming. She was (probably still is) an extraordinary woman who ran our church kitchen. I learned a lot about cooking for large groups from her. (Also about sprinkling apple wedges with lime juice, rather than the more typical lemon, to keep them from going brown. Also many other things.) I think of Raelene every time I make this soup. Maybe someday I'll see her again and can tell her so.
The recipe starts with this note: "The secret to this delicious soup is using real Hungarian paprika - other types don't have the same flavor." I don't remember what brand and type of paprika I used under Raelene's tutelage, but have always used the sweet. (There is also hot paprika.) Just do your best.
6 Tablespoons butter (you could go with a little less, but why? This has no pretensions to being a low-fat food.)
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
4 teaspoons Hungarian paprika.
4 teaspoons dried dill weed
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 2/3 cup milk
2 2/3 cup water
4 cups sliced mushrooms
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 cup sour cream
In a large saucepan, melt butter and saute onion, paprika, dill weed, salt and pepper till the onion is tender (don't rush!). Whisk in the flour and then the milk and water. Add the mushrooms and bring almost to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer about 30 minutes, stirring
And that is where my recipe ends. Somewhere there is a 2nd sheet of paper that says something like:
occasionally. Just before serving, add soy sauce, lemon juice, sour cream, and parsley.
This serves 4, I think. It is a rich soup. But it is so delicious that it's hard to stop eating it!
3 comments:
This sounds fantastic!! I'll have to save it for sometime when my parents are over to eat because my kids won't eat mushrooms...
This sounds SO good...I'll have to try it!
I've never had homemeade mushroom soup because I always hated the Campbell's canned stuff so much, I just assumed all mushroom soup tasted like that. Silly, eh? Especially when so many of my friends at different times have said things like,"I had the BEST mushroom soup the other day!"
I'll try this sometime. Mushroom is my favorite soup.
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