My lousy cold is lingering, hence no soup yesterday, but today Lou took over from where she left off last week, making mushroom soup with Graham. It was one of her minimalist recipes: minced garlic and thyme sautéed in butter (she actually used Utterly Butterly, don't ask me why) followed by two kilos of 'shrooms, sweated in the soup pot with the lid on for ten to fifteen minutes, stirred every few minutes to stop it sticking and ensure even cooking. Then she poured over six litres of Marigold bouillon and simmered the soup for a further ten minutes before blitzing it with the stick blender. And that's it, really.I thought this soup was delicious and sufficiently pungent for its earthy aroma to penetrate my cold. Lou served it with a swirl of single cream and there were 17 takers, six of whom had seconds, making a total of 23 bowls served (as usual!) As someone wrote, rather enigmatically, in the log bok: 'Must Understand Soups Have Really Orsum OM Factor'. Indeed.
Some technical notes: Lou bought her 'shrooms at Somerfield, because they have bargainous 750g packs of field mushrooms. She used two, plus a 500g punnet of button mushrooms, which went into the pot whole and were a birrova bovver to liquidizise with the baby stick mixer. Our big mixer is still at the menders where it's gone for a service: new lead and blade. You'd think that would be a pretty straightforward proposition, but oh no. Turns out there's only one guy at the factory who does servicing and he's got some kind of grievance, so I don't think we're going to get our Dynamic magic wand back any day soon. Never mind that this machine is integral to our operation every single day and it's going to cost, like, a hundred quid to tune it up. I only hope it's going to be as good as new for that price, because I could have a new one tomorrow for twice as much. Innit.
