Three Mushroom and Paprika Soup

Happily, after several weeks of talking about this fantastic soup recipe that I had run across and was just dying to put my own twist on, Lisa was able to come over this weekend for some culinary adventures. She's one of my favorite people to cook with, because we both love experimenting and are both absolutely rubbish at following recipes to the letter. (I mean, they're more like guidelines really...) We certainly did pick a perfect day to make a pot of soup; today was gray and misting some kind of unfriendly ice-fog all morning, making the kitchen the perfect place to be.
I had a fantastic time catching up with Lisa, talking about books, nerdery, cutlery and how ridiculously delicious and perfectly carbonated La Croix Coconut sparkling water is. Don't believe me? Just try it. It is the perfect way to use fresh summer flavors to get rid of the mid-winter blahs. (Delicious plain, but also one heck of a drink mixer!)

We started the day with a wonderful adventure to the co-op for supplies, and ended up expanding our menu considerably based on the temptation of some particularly excellent looking produce (see the Broccoli Romanescu Risotto recipe that I'll be posting in the next blog entry. It was scrumptious!)

Now on to the details. If you're going to make this soup, and I really hope that you do,  here is what you are going to need:

• 2 1/4 - 2 1/2 lb button, crimini and shiitake mushrooms, stems trimmed and thickly sliced (I overestimated a bit here because of them stems. Also, I just love mushrooms and more is better, right?)
• olive oil
• unsalted butter
• 1 medium onion, minced
• 3 cloves garlic, diced
• 1/4 cup red wine
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 2 Tbsp Spanish paprika
• 1/2 - 1 tsp black pepper
• 4 cups chicken or vegetable stock
• 2 Tbsp cornstarch
• 2 Tbsp soy sauce
• 3/4 cup heavy cream
• 2 Tbsp fresh dill, loosely chopped
• lemon slices, sour cream and additional dill to garnish

 

Saute onion and garlic in large pot in 2 Tbsp each of butter and olive oil until softened. Add mushrooms, increase heat and sauté until most of the moisture has  evaporated. (Depending on the mushrooms, this may take a good while).  Stir in wine, lemon juice, paprika and pepper. Cook until wine has nearly evaporated, and then add stock. Bring just to a boil, then reduce heat to medium and simmer for 20 minutes. While simmering, whisk together soy sauce and cornstarch and add to the soup to thicken. Just before serving, finish soup with cream and fresh dill. Garnish with lemon slices and sour cream.

Now, when I make this soup again, I probably will use a little bit of heat, and toss in a bit of cayenne pepper. Not too much, because I don't want to overwhelm the mushrooms, but I feel like a little bit would have been perfect alongside the earthy mushrooms and fresh dill flavor.