Soupruary 25th: Mushroom Noodle

Mushroomy! Noodly! That's all I need to know.


Ken, Josh and I enjoyed a hurried soup with some bread and cheese before dashing off to the wonderful opening at the Contemporary Arts Center, featuring the current work of local artist Jimmy Baker and an extensive Keith Haring retrospective.


Very classy, very Friday, very Cincinnati.


The Soup:
The plan all along was to make a recipe my darling mother sent me for Creamy Hungarian Mushroom soup. All the ingredients were purchased and prepped. It was THE PLAN. The recipe called for mushroom broth, so I decided to make my own rather than purchase a box of it. About half way into that, my mind started viewing at the plan a little differently.

See, Plan, you were a good plan. A great plan, even. It's not you, it's me. It's my fault I've been making so many creamy soups lately. It's my fault I made a broth so decadent on its own that it seemed a crime to add potatoes and cream. It's my fault I wanted noodles so hard today that I would have sold my car for some spaghetti. Don't feel bad, plan. I'll come back to you someday.

It's me and you forever, mushroom broth. I'll never leave you or replace you, for better or for worse.

Making the broth. Nasty-looking, no?

The rest of the soup, eh, whatever. It wasn't anything special. It was just precisely what I wanted at the time. So if you need a mushroom broth, y'all, MAKE THIS ONE. K?

Mushroom Broth
adapted from Gordon Hamersly's recipe for Food & Wine

1/4 cup olive oil
1 pound white mushrooms, finely chopped
8 ounces crimini mushrooms, finely chopped
2 portobello mushrooms, stems and caps chopped
1/2 Spanish onion, coarsely chopped
2 teaspoons chopped garlic
2 cups dry white wine (I used a torrontes)
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup dried mixed wild mushrooms ( 1/2 ounce)
1/2 teaspoon herbes de Provence or thyme

In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium high heat. Add the white mushrooms, crimini mushrooms, Portobello, onion and garlic and cook, stirring, until the mushrooms release their liquid, about 5 minutes.

Add the wine, soy sauce, dried mushrooms, salt, herbes de Provence and 6 cups of water and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce the heat to moderate and simmer until the liquid is reduced to about 4 cups, about 1 hour.

Pour the broth through a fine strainer into a heatproof bowl. Strain again, leaving any particles at the bottom of the bowl.

Mushroom Noodle Soup

dash of olive oil
8 oz sliced button mushrooms
8 oz sliced crimini mushrooms
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 quart mushroom broth
4 oz homemade egg noodles
1 tablespoon paprika
2 teaspoons fresh thyme
shredded Parmesan, for garnish

Heat up the olive oil in your soup pot over medium-high. Add mushrooms and garlic and sweat for about five minutes. Add broth, egg noodles, paprika and thyme, and cook until noodles are tender. Season to taste with pepper and salt if necessary (I only added pepper, as the broth was salty enough). Serve with shredded Parmesan.