TGIFood

Souper Tuesday: Cream of mushroom soup

A new soup recipe, every Tuesday in TGIFood during the colder months.

6 May 2025

Our Souper Tuesdays are back, to see you through the colder months. Let’s start with a classic – and along the way we’ll bring you innovations as well as more of the old standards worth going back to. For more.

It’s a term you never hear any more. A “cream of” something soup. Cream of tomato, or of asparagus, or of mushroom. Like this one. The name suggests luxury, that something special has been done in its preparation. As if to say, “This is how we make soup”.

In a creamed soup there is one central ingredient (cream of chicken, asparagus, celery, tomato, etc) which is enhanced by the addition of cream. Once the two have been given some time, during gentle simmering, for the cream to do its work, you end up with a fine soup that celebrates that one ingredient, with the cream having added refinement.

A new soup recipe, every Tuesday in TGIFood during the colder months.

This is not to say there aren’t other ingredients. There is almost invariably onion in a vegetable soup, often garlic too, as well as herbs or spices or both. Celery and/or carrots make their way into many soups, unobtrusively. You shouldn’t really be aware of them, but there might seem to be something missing if they are not there. If it’s a cream of celery soup, then obviously there is plenty of celery and that is the hero.

A grated potato adds a bit of backbone to many soups, even if you’re barely aware of it. Wine, stock and sometimes a touch of luxury in the form of port or sherry, can add a finishing touch that arrests the palate.

Tony’s cream of mushroom soup

(Makes 4 bowls of soup)

Ingredients

3 Tbsp butter plus 2 Tbsp more

750 g button mushrooms, sliced

1 bay leaf

3 rosemary sprigs

1 cup white wine

1 large onion, chopped

2 celery stalks, diced

3 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 large potato, peeled and cubed

2 cups beef stock

2 cups vegetable stock

½ cup Port

1 cup cream

Salt to taste

Black pepper to taste

1 Tbsp cornflour mixed with 3 Tbsp water (optional)

2 slices of slightly stale ordinary white bread

A little butter to fry the croutons and extra mushrooms slices in

Method

Choose a medium, heavy pot and put it on a medium heat on the stove.

Chop the mushrooms. Choose 4 mushrooms to use as garnish and set them aside.

Melt the butter, add the sliced mushrooms (but not the ones for garnish), bay leaf and rosemary sprigs and fry them until they’re soft and nutty and begin to release their juices.

Continue cooking until all of their juices have been released. By the time I got to this stage the chopped mushrooms were covered in liquid.

Add the white wine, bring to a simmer and cook until two-thirds of the liquid remains.

Transfer the contents of the pot to a bowl or jug and set aside. Fish out the bay leaf and discard.

Add 3 Tbsp more butter to the pot.

Sauté the chopped onion, celery and garlic until soft. Grate the peeled potato into the pot and stir.

Return the mushrooms to the pot, add the stock and stir.

Season with salt and black pepper to taste, bring to a simmer and cook gently for about 15 minutes for the flavours to develop.

Add the port and simmer for 5 to 7 minutes.

Add the cream, return to a simmer, and cook gently for about 10 minutes while the cream does its work in luxuriating the soup.

If the soup is not thick enough for your liking, dissolve 1 Tbsp (or less) cornflour in a little water and stir it into the soup. Simmer, stirring, for 2 or 3 minutes while it thickens.

Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.

Melt extra butter in a pan and fry the sliced mushrooms on both sides, quickly, so that they have not yet released any juices.

Slice the bread into small cubes. Add more butter and fry the cubes of bread until golden on two or more sides.

Serve the soup garnished with slices of mushroom and croutons. DM

Tony Jackman is twice winner of the Galliova Food Writer of the year award, in 2021 and 2023

Order Tony’s book, foodSTUFF, here.

Follow Tony Jackman on Instagram @tony_jackman_cooks.

This dish is photographed in bowls by Mervyn Gers Ceramics.

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