- People often ask me what is my favorite thing to cook?

And of course, I can't answer that question, but I can say I never get tired of making pots of soup, particularly mushroom soup, and particularly this mushroom soup.

I think it is one of the most delicious soups that I make.

[gentle jazz music] I am gonna start with a mushroom topping that I'm gonna put in the oven.

When I make this soup, I try to get as many different kinds of mushrooms as I can find.

I'm gonna start with my shiitakes and you'll notice that I am keeping these mushrooms in pretty big pieces.

Now I have some good old creminis, which are sometimes called baby portobellos.

Do this one.

I want these in chunky bite-sized pieces.

This one's called a Maitake and you can just shred it.

It's almost like pulling cheese apart.

Lion's mane, one of the most impressive mushrooms.

Look at this one.

Look at this color.

This is called a blue oyster mushroom and this assists a yellow foot.

Sometimes it looks like these have come out of a crayon box.

I just love how these look.

[gentle jazz music] So, now that I have my beautiful medley of mushrooms, I'm gonna put a little bit of seasoning.

The first thing is some soy sauce.

I think soy sauce is a great addition to mushrooms.

Gonna take a tiny bit of oil, a few good grinds of black pepper, and some salt.

When you add salt to mushrooms matters and for this high temperature roasting, the salt is gonna make them release their juices in the way that I want.

It won't turn them soupy.

Then take my little baking sheet here, which I've lined with parchment, and I'm just gonna pour it right on there, spread 'em out into an even layer, because mushrooms need some room, and then I've got fresh thyme sprigs and I'm just gonna tuck them down between the mushrooms, and already, we have our topping nearly made.

It's gonna go in the oven to roast while I start working on the next part of the soup.

[gentle jazz music continues] The next kind of mushroom I'm preparing for my soup are dried mushrooms, in particular, dried porcinis.

So, what I'm gonna do is I'm going to rehydrate these and I'm gonna let these sit for about 20 minutes.

So, after 20 minutes, look what happened.

They turned back into these beautiful, more moist little pieces.

So, I'm gonna strain this.

All I have here is a good paper coffee filter, and I'm gonna put my mushrooms in here and I'm gonna let it drain.

I am so excited to show you how I assemble this soup.

I'm gonna start with some good old butter.

Put it in my pan, and then I'm going to put in an onion, a diced onion.

I'm gonna put in a great big pinch of salt.

Now, I'm gonna add some garlic, too.

I'm gonna stir as I go.

Next comes more of those gorgeous mushrooms and I'm gonna add another pinch of salt to encourage them to release their delicious juices and if you season as you go, it all adds up to what you want in the end.

I'm gonna show you guys a great trick.

Sometimes when I'm building flavor in a savory soup like this, I add a little bit of tomato paste, double concentrate tomato paste, not so much for the tomato flavor, but for the beautiful richness and Umami that it brings.

Now, you'll notice I have made myself a little clearing in my mushrooms here and I'm gonna take that last little dab of butter that I set aside, put it in the pot, and let it melt.

I'm gonna add that tomato paste and what I'm gonna do, so I'm gonna add it to that little clearing I have made and I'm gonna let that butter and that tomato paste sizzle together and once that sizzle gets going, I'm going to quickly coat everything in the pot with that caramelized sizzling tomato paste.

I often put wine in mushroom soups and my favorite pairing with mushrooms is Madeira and I'm going to pour my Madeira into my pot and as the alcohol cooks away, it is releasing even more flavor from these mushrooms and these onions.

I am going to put some flour into this to lightly thicken the soup and I'm going to add paprika.

So, let me give this a good stir, [soft music] and now, we're gonna add some chicken stock.

I have a little bit more soy sauce, and then we have our strained mushroom stock, and then we have our rehydrated porcini.

Give it a good stir one more time.

Now, I'm gonna let this simmer for a few minutes until my mushrooms are tender, until all the flavors have melted, and then we're gonna puree it and finish it up.

[gentle Italian music] So, my soup is simmered.

Those flavors have come together, and now, I'm going to puree it.

So, I'm going to transfer about half of my soup and I'm going to pour it into the blender, making sure I have both some solids and some liquid.

[blender whirring] So, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna put this back in the pot, puree the other half, and then we're gonna garnish this and it'll be ready to taste.

So, my pureed soup is back in the pot and I have two more things to add in.

The first is a tiny bit of cream to bring these flavors together and I'm also going to add the juice of a lemon to lift everything up for that final burst of flavor.

Let this hang out and warm up a little bit and look at these mushrooms that came out of the oven.

Are they not beautiful?

Now, by this point, this thyme has given all the flavor it's going to have, but I want to refresh that.

So, I have some fresh thyme leaves.

I'm just gonna sprinkle over and I also have stirred together some sour cream.

I took the zest off of that lemon that I put in the pot.

I stirred it into sour cream with a little salt and pepper and that's gonna be my garnish.

Let's put this together.

You want a nice big wide bowl for this, and then I'm gonna put some of my mushrooms on top.

Maybe one of these guys.

Let's stick one of those guys in there, too.

A big beautiful dollop of my lemony sour cream and and delicious.

This is a celebration of mushrooms.

Look at all the varieties we put in.

Look at all the ways we cooked them.

This is great mushroom soup.

It's a keeper.

[upbeat jazz music] [upbeat music]