Mushroom Potato Soup

I adore the flavors and textures of many different mushroom soups.  Unfortunately, many mushroom soup recipes contain an astonishing amount of animal fat in the form of cream, lard, and/or large quantities of butter.   I’ll be honest – it took a while to create a heart healthy mushroom soup which still offered the velvety texture and depth of flavor I desired.  But this… THIS is the recipe that captured what I wanted, while saying au revoir to most of that fat!

A word of advice:  Don’t skimp on the beef broth.  Use the best beef broth you can get your hands on, such as the beef broth from our Soupe à l’oignon recipe, here.  Trust me on this.  Alternately, if you prefer not to include meat products in your cooking, you can easily convert this into a vegetarian recipe.  Instead of beef broth, use a vegetable juice such as “v8.”  Vegetable broth is too thin, both in viscosity and flavor, for this recipe.

Ingredients (makes about 8 cups)

1/2 ounce dried porcini mushrooms

4 cups water

1 cup excellent quality beef broth

2 peeled, cubed potatoes

1/4 cup chopped onion

2 teaspoons butter

1 cup sliced shiitaki mushrooms

2 cups sliced button mushrooms

2 small carrots sliced into coins

1 rib of celery, chopped

1 cup chopped kale

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1 cup slightly undercooked brown rice

2 tablespoons worchestershire sauce

Directions

Step 1) Bring 4 cups of water to a boil in a large pot.  Remove from heat.  Add dried porcinis, cover, and soak for 15 minutes.  Then, remove porcinis with a slotted spoon… leave the liquid in the pot!  Chop the porcinis into bite size pieces and set them aside.

Step 2) To the pot of liquid, add beef stock and peeled, cubed potatoes.  Cook until potatoes are soft, about 10 minutes.  Puree with an immersion blender.

Step 3) While the potatoes are cooking, sauté 1/4 cup chopped onion in 2 teaspoons of butter.

Step 4) To the pot of broth and pureed potatoes, add sautéed onions, skiitake mushrooms, button mushrooms, carrot, celery, kale, pepper, and undercooked brown rice.  Simmer for 10 minutes, then remove from heat.

Step 5) Stir in chopped porcinis and worchestershire sauce.  Enjoy!