Mushroom Soup

* receipe adapted from Heston Blumenthal's "at Home"

Ingredients (serves 4 to 6 persons):

For the mushroom powder:
10g dried shitake mushrooms
10g dried porcini mushrooms

For the Soup:
1.5kg Chicken stock **
160g unsalted butter
2 onions - finely sliced
1 small potato - soften then cut into small cubes
2 leeks - white part only, finely sliced
800g buttom mushrooms, finely sliced
50g dry white vermouth (optional)
80g whipping cream
40g milk

** For Vegetarian version, replace chicken stock with vegetable stock

How to Make:

1. Mushroom Powder: you can make this one day ahead. Preheat oven to 150'C . Roast the dried mushrooms on a baking tray for 5 min. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Blitz them in a spice grinder or food processor until very fine. Keep in airtight container until ready to use.
** if you want to clean the dried mushrooms with water before roasting, i will suggest you to allow a long enough time for them to dry up again before roasting. 

2.  Make your stock one day ahead: Boil old chicken (without skin) together with carrots, celery, onion for 3-4 hours. Drain soup to a pot and after cool down, chill in fridge. On the day you make the soup, take it out from the fridge and remove the fat that will be gathered at the top layer. Reheat the soup.

3. Melt butter in a large saucepan and sweat onion and potato without letting them color (approx 10min).

4. Add leeks and mushrooms and cook until they soften (around 15 min)

5. Turn the heat to high and add the vermouth. Allow it to redice until almost all the liquid has disappeared.

6. Pour the mushroom mixture to the chicken stock (which was already boiled), then add the milk and cream. Bring to boil again and reduce toa simmer. Cook for another 10 min.

7. Remove from heat and blitz in blender in several batches until completely smooth.

8. After each batch, sieve the blended mixture to a clean pot.

9. Season with salt and pepper. With a hand blender, aerate the soup for 60 sec to make it lighter or frothy.

10. Ladle the soup to bowls and sprinkle with the mushroom powder on top before serving.

Enjoy!!