I don’t have a ‘beef’ with Mushrooms

Non-mushroom eaters have given mushrooms a bad name. [This post is specifically targeted at Phillip and his friends and all who turn their noses up at mushrooms. Those who will not eat mushrooms when they come out as part of a big breakfast on a Sunday morning or as part of a stir-fry or will even pick them out of a good meat pie.]

Mushrooms are quiet tasty, in fact most Australians think so. According to www.mushrooms.net.au, about half the Australian child population either like or love mushrooms and over 90% of people over the age of 25 either like or love mushrooms.

More than 85% of Australian households purchase fresh mushrooms regularly; 55% of them buy at least once per week and 38% of primary grocery shoppers always have them on their shopping list. The average purchase volume is 457 grams.

Mushrooms are, in fact, the second most valuable fresh vegetable crop grown in Australia, after potatoes. Now that’s saying something!

So why do so few have such a big ‘beef’ with mushrooms? Especially when mushrooms are such a great source of protein and can be a substitute for beef or meat to make a recipe vegetarian friendly.

Last night, it was surprising cool for a Canberra summer. I guess it’s all the crazy weather that we are experiencing – with such devastating floods in Brisbane, northern NSW and now even in Victoria. Instead of a hot and dry 30 degree night, we experienced a cool, wet night – perfect for soup.

Milka had brought home a rather large bag of mushrooms a couple of days ago, which we were going to make into a mushroom and seeded mustard sauce for some chicken breasts. I’m not too sure what distracted us, but never the less, yesterday a big bag of mushrooms that needed to be used, sat in our fridge.

I made this delicious thick and creamy mushroom soup that was rich and ‘beefy’ enough to twist the arm of any die-hard carnivore to this vegetarian mushroom soup.

MUSHROOM SOUP
1 kg mushrooms
2 large brown onions
4 gloves of garlic
2 tablespoons of olive oil
2 tablespoons of butter
2 tablespoons of instant gravy powder
1 tablespoon of flour
2 litres of vegetable stock
salt and pepper

Into a large saucepan place the oil and sliced brown onions. Cook over a high heat making sure they are nice and translucent, before adding the mushrooms and butter.

Brown the mushroom and onion mixture, before adding the crushed garlic and flour. Mix making sure that all of the flour is cooked before adding gravy powder and vegetable stock. Simmer for 20 minutes.

Place 4/5 of the soup into a blender and blend on high for 3 minutes. Return this soup back into the pan with the remaining 1/5 of unblended soup. Stir and then season with salt and pepper.