Mushroom soup with Chili Oil

This time am not going to start my post with the weather of Bangalore. My brother yesterday called up and said that my blog seems more like a weather report on Bangalore, all its missing is a picture of mine in a business suit with a stick in hand pointing to the map beside me. Ha, very funny but I realized may be a lot of you must have been thinking the same way. So rather today am going to give you a recipe that is very comforting to sustain such bad weathers. That’s my deliciously creamy mushroom soup with chili infused oil.
READ MORE...

Though these days we drink a lot of soup but in the beginning, I hated it like anything. I found all soups way too bland for my taste so to spice it up I started drizzling it with various types of oil, which I do till today. Any soup that I find is not red hot for me I drizzle a generous amount of spicy chili oil on top. Remember my 

Root vegetable soup with Chili infused oil

or the recent Vegetable Clear soup with rice Vermicelli

This soup is no exception but this tastes equally good without the oil. I learnt this soup from a friend of mine who learnt it from her aunt. She knew I adore mushrooms so on a chilly Saturday afternoon in Delhi she invited me to her place to have this soup. She lived in a big-shared apartment with two of her sisters and other three girls. I always wanted to have sisters and envied her for the adorable sisters she had.  Those were the bachelorette days of our lives and had very few gadgets…so she used a hand chopper to mash the boiled mushrooms. 

But at the end, I was bowled over by the rich taste of this soup. It was creamy, it was flavourful and it was lip-smackingly delicious. I loved it so much that I kept on preparing this again and again and especially during winters when curling on a couch with a hot bowl of soup seems almost like nirvana. Hubby equally loves this one and whenever he sees good button mushrooms in the market he brings home at least 2 packets and requests me to make this. With time I changed the recipe to suit my taste and to make it simpler. I omitted the soy sauce part that she used for extra flavour and used whole-wheat flour (instead of corn flour) for a healthier option. After marriage, I made this soup a few times with unflavoured soymilk but in that case, you need to use a wee bit more oregano to cover that soy smell. All in all it’s a great soup and perfect for the weather in Bangalore right now. Oops, guess am again going on the same direction so here is how I way about it.

but before I start a big bunch of thanks to 'S' who taught me this.

Mushroom soup with Chili oil

Ingredients:
Button mushrooms: 2 packets
Garlic: 5-6 fat cloves
Onion: 1 small
Chili flakes: 1/3 tsp
Milk: 11/2 cups
Water: 2 cups
Soup stock: 1 cube
All purpose flour/ Whole-wheat flour: 1 tbsp
Oregano: 1/3 tsp
Salt
Pepper powder
Olive oil: 1 tsp


Chili oil: recipe HERE

Method:
Clean the dirt on the mushrooms and quickly wash under running water. Chop in small pieces.

Chop the onion and garlic and keep separate.

Heat the oil in a big pan and add the chili flakes Add the garlic and fry till you get a nice aroma. Add onions, pepper powder and a pinch of salt. Fry till translucent. 

Add the chopped mushrooms and fry on medium-high. A lot of juice will come out. Don’t worry keep on frying, it would be soaked up in the process. Once the mushrooms are dry and fried take out 1/4^th of the quantity to add little bites to your soup. Keep it aside and Add the flour to the pot and fry on low, till a nice nutty aroma comes through.

Add the water, crumble in the soup stock and check the seasoning. Stir and bring it to a boil. The flour will thicken the sauce a little.

Then pour the warm milk and mix everything together. Cover and let it simmer for 3-4 minutes on low. Switch it off.

Now blend the whole mixture to a coarse puree. Put it back to the pan with the fried mushrooms before. Add little oregano, check the seasoning and let it come to a boil. Once the soup is thick serve immediately with toasts or sandwiches.

I had mine last night with some whole-wheat cheese toast and hubby with some leftover chicken tikka between two breads. That was perfect to warm our taste buds and souls. Try yourself to know…

Events:
sending this to Souper Soup Sunday at Kahakai Kitchen.

and to Pari's Only: low oil/low calorie event. this month hosted at Priya's Mahro Rajasthan's Recipes.

Tags:

Mushroom, mushroom snacks, fungus soup, cream of mushroom soup, button mushroom, oyster mushroom, mushroom with milk, creamy soup, think soup, best cream of mushroom soup, spicy soup, soup with spice oil, soup with chili oil, cheese toast. mushroom with cheese, mushroom with toast, chicken tikka toast, thick soup, soup for dinner, soup for brunch, heavy soup, filling soup, comforting soup. warming soup, soup for winter, best soup ever,