Adapted from Kitchen of the Six Paupers
Looking for an incredible soup recipe to pass the winter by? Look no further. A dash of green tea underlines an amazingly decadent blend of wild mushroom flavor for a creamy, to-die-for taste. This aromatic recipe is written for a feast, so you might want to reduce the recipe by two-thirds. Or not–just make the whole batch and freeze for later. Once it’s gone, you’ll need more.
Pairings
- Mai Green Tea, by Mushroom Wisdom
- Reishi Green Tea, by Buddha Teas
- Organic Earl Green Tea, by MightyLeaf
Ingredients
- 1 pound whole Portabellos
- Montreal Steak Seasoning
- 6 bags of green tea
- 2 carrots (peeled and roughly chop)
- onion (roughly chop)
- celery stalks (cleaned and rough chop)
- 10 cloves of roasted garlic
- Olive oil
- pounds each of sliced button mushrooms, shitake, hedgehog, etc.
- 1 cup sherry
- 1 pound roux (equal parts of flour and hot melted butter)
- 1/2 gallon of chicken stock
- 1 gallon of green tea and honey (6 green tea bags and 4 tablespoons wild flower honey)
- Sea salt and white pepper to taste
- 1-1/2 quarts heavy cream
- 10 sprigs of thyme (leaves only and chopped fine)
- 1 tablespoon wild flower honey
Method
To smoke the portabellas:
- Clean the mushrooms (take a spoon and clean the underside where the gills are)
- Season the mushrooms with Montreal steak seasoning and set aside.
- Open the tea bags and dump the green tea leaves in the bottom of a roasting pan. Place a wire rack on top of the leaves. Put mushrooms on wire rack and add 2 cups of water to the pan. Cover pan with foil and place on top of stove over a medium -low heat.
- Heat for 45 minutes. Remove mushrooms from pan and when cool, slice and set aside.
Step 2:
- Place the carrots, onion and celery in a food processor and process them until they are very fine. You may have to do this in batches because you don’t want any chunks. Add the roasted garlic and pulse to mix.
- Heat about 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil in a large stockpot. Add vegetables and sauté until tender and the onions are translucent. Add thyme and all the mushrooms except the green-tea smoked portabellas.
- Continue cooking until liquid is almost gone. Add sherry and cook until liquid is gone. Season to taste with salt and white pepper.
Step 3
- While mushrooms are cooking, make the green-tea reduction. Place remaining tea bags, honey, and 1 gallon of water in a second stockpot. Bring to a boil and reduce by 1/4. Add chicken stock and bring it up to another boil and reduce the heat to low. Add roux and whisk until all clumps are gone and it thickens.
Step 4
- Add the green tea stock to the mushroom pot and bring to a simmer. Add the heavy cream. If it needs to be a little thicker, add a cornstarch slurry (equal parts of cornstarch and water) until the consistency is creamy but not too thick. Season to taste with salt and white pepper. Add the remaining tablespoon of honey at the very end.
