Hello everyone, today we have creamy wild rice mushroom soup on the menu. A hearty warm delicious soup that will warm your heart and soul. Healthy, gluten-free vegan mushroom soup that has lots of flavors and textures mixed up in one delicious bowl.
Tired of dry lunch sandwiches? Pick up a thermos cup and enjoy a hot homemade meal that will warm you to the bones. It is easy to make, lasts in a fridge for a couple of days, great for the Lent season, as it is so filling and yummy.
My family’s mushroom story
Mushroom soup was rotating in our house when I was a child every other week regardless of the season.
Why? Because my grandma Tonya who raised me helping my parents had a free wild forest spirit that she kept alive throughout her civilized life in Ukraine after she moved there after marrying my grandpa.
My grandma Tonya was born in Belarus during World War II. She was raised in a tiny ten-house village next to a wild forest by a widowed mother along with three siblings. Her father was killed by the Nazis in their own village at the beginning of the war so they had no hope that he would come back one day. They knew they had to count only on themselves from the very beginning of the war and had to become grown-ups quickly. Foraging in the forest became their primary source of food during and after wartime hunger.
All sorts of wild berries and wild mushrooms were everything that they ate. Belarusians are also known as potato lovers, so they grew potatoes and other root vegetables as well and kept them in a cellar. Mushrooms, however, as a rich source of protein were highly respected. They were dried for future use in winter recipes, pickled for winter, and enjoyed fried fresh from the forest throughout all summer and autumn months. Little kids were sent foraging in the forest to bring mushrooms home for dinner as a regular chore.
From an early age, these kids were taught to navigate forests, understand signs of weather changes, tell apart edible versus poisonous berries and mushrooms, and survive wilderness overall. While their mother was working in a field, children were roaming the forest to forage for anything edible in a harsh postwar time.
These children were certainly strong and quick but their wit and savviness gave them an edge over the kids living in cities. My grandma Tonya took first place in the long jump competition held in the city, even though she was never trained by a coach before. Her skills came from those days foraging mushrooms when she would encounter a wild boar, a moose, or a wolf and she would need to outrun them across the forest floor, jumping over creeks and logs to survive. Oh did I mention that she won the competition in a skirt as it was appropriate to wear at that time?
With that family history in heart, I can affirm that my grandma knew numerous tasty mushroom recipes. Also working as a professional chef in the industrial kitchen (USSR time, no restaurants) her recipes were pretty legit regarding nutrition proportions.
Wild Rice Mushroom Soup
One mushroom soup recipe that I grew up with you can find here: Creamy Autumn Mushroom Soup. It is the brothy mushroom soup that is also creamy, but the emphasis is made on brothy-ness. It is perfect for those times when you feel like you want a chicken broth but you are in the midst of Lent. You need a legitimate substitute that has the features of being tasty, warm, brothy, fulfilling, has proteins in it to keep you full, and preferably is also creamy.
Wild rice mushroom soup is another style, it’s a thick soup version, it has almost a porridge or a chili texture, full of vegetables and packed with flavors of wild rice and mushrooms it is so rich and flavorful but at the same time so rurally perfect in its simplicity, that it’s almost impossible not to dip a piece of bread toast in it and forget about etiquette rules.
Go ahead if you must, creamy wild rice mushroom soup deserves to be enjoyed simply like that.
After eating this incredible meal, you will become a pinch happier, I promise!
Bon Appétit!
Wild Rice Mushroom Soup
Equipment
- Pot (4 Quarts)
Ingredients
- 2 big potatoes
- 2 small onions
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1/2 cup wild rice
- 1 can coconut milk
- 3 sprigs cellery
- 2 small carots
- 16 oz. fresh mushrooms of your choice
- 10 gr dried porcini mushrooms
- 1 tbsp. salt
- 1 pinch paper
- 1 tbsp. oregano
- 1/2 bunch fresh parsley
Instructions
- Prepare your ingredients
- Peel and dice potatoes. Cover with about 3.5 quarts of filtered water and bring to boil. When start boiling take off the foam with the slotted spoon and reduce heat to medium. Add wild rice at this stage (wash it in a colander under running cold water to remove all dirt) Rice and potatoes would need 30-45 minutes of cooking time while rice and potatoes are cooking proceed with remaining ingredients. Wash and quarter your fresh mushrooms at this stage (if mushrooms are small leave them whole, it will add some character to the dish)
- Before you start cover dry mushrooms with 1/2 cup (125 ml) of boiling water. Mushrooms will release their extensive flavor and the dirt and sand will be removed and will go on the bottom of the flavored water.
- Dice onion and garlic. Sautee in olive oil on medium heat for 5 minutes or until onion becomes translucent
- Add mushrooms to sauteed onions and cook for 5 minutes
- Add mushroom mixture to the soup. Add chopped, steeped mushrooms. Also, add flavored water from steeped mushrooms (make sure to not pour in the residue from the bottom). Add salt and pepper to taste. I like to add 1 tbsp of salt for this amount of soup. Cook for 5 more min.
- Dice carrots and celery, and set aside
- Add diced carrots and celery. Cook for 3 min.
- Add coconut milk , cook for 5 min and set aside.
- Add diced parsley to the wild rice mushroom soup and enjoy! Bon Appétit!
