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This is my personal favorite and it's quite unusual and when I give it to people they can't believe the whole concept of it and how it's made. It's simple. It's easy and it's a baked mushroom soup. The flavor you get through baking it is incredible. We've got bread in there to thicken it and make it creamy and gorgeous. Little cork gnarly bits at the side and we've got a little bit of cheese in there as well. It's really cheap to make. So, if you love soup, if you love mushroom soup, then this is another level. I want to give you all of my secrets to make this because it really is a thing of joy. Let's start this lovely recipe.
I got some beautiful mushrooms here. Just 300 g is all you need. We've got portoellas, little oysters, you know, lovely little shiakeis. Whenever the mushrooms are in season or good, or you can see them down the market, supermarket, if they're doing a deal on them, happy days. I've got two onions there cut in half. I'm using a red onion. It can be white. That's fine, too. Right. I've got to be fast because the kids will be waiting. So, let's go with the flow. Slice up the onions about a centimeter across. Then, twist it and go a centimeter the other way. Then,
a little bit of olive oil. And then, take time. Now, look at this. This is a fantastic herb. Just get yourself a couple of little stalks. Put your finger around it and just pull it like that. So you get that. And that's going to start flavoring the oil as it heats up. So that time will go in about half a bunch. Four cloves of garlic. And I'll slice the garlic and then chop it up. This is a very rough and ready rugged soup, right? It's an absolute reflection of me. Bit rough around the edges, but it's full of flavor. So, time smells amazing. Garlic is just softening there. Now, the onions, very, very humble ingredients.
In times like this, I think we've seen food offer lots of things to people. solace, you know, reliability, but then also more so than ever, the food that you cook and you serve to your friends says something about you. And this is a great curve ball cuz if people come around for a bit of lunch and you rattle that out, depth of flavor is like the biggest slap and hug around the face. But a good soup, I think, is really, really underrated. A lot of our soups are pre-done. Whether it's in a, you know, pack or a tin. When you do your own soup, it's going to have attitude. It's big flavor. I love
love making this soup. Sweat that off for 5 minutes just to soften up those onions. I'm using mushrooms as the main flavor. And if you make this with button mushrooms, the cheapest mushroom you can find, it's great. And then when you use interesting mushrooms, it's a game changer. We're going to create nice little slices. And then the stalks. Let's finely chop those. Big flavor. Sometimes instead of slicing, I'll just crush them and squash them and rip them and tear them. I quite like that, too. So, we'll just sweat these off for a little bit. for light seasoning with
black pepper. Normally when I cook mushrooms, I'll be frying them off and browning them off now. And I'm not going to do that today, right? I want to bring out the cleaner, creamier, fresher, nuttier flavors. So, I'm going to do that by breaking this frying now by adding just over a liter of really good chicken stock. Now, you can use veggie stock, you can use chicken stock, beef stock if you want, even stock cubes. It's all good. But the better the stock, the better the soup. Now, as that comes to a simmer, we're then going to get on to bread. So, of course, if you use your standard bread,
it's going to be delicious. Use good sourdough bread made with a bit of love and care. It's going to be amazing. You just tear this 300 g, half a loaf. Pull out the softer part straight in. There's this incredible creaminess that you just couldn't imagine you'd get from bread. Really elegant. Bigger bits for the middle and then tear the crust. So, proper, rough, and ready. And this will give the most amazing flavor. This idea that bread's only used for sandwiches is ridiculous. For hundreds and hundreds of years, you know, we use it for a thickening agent. We
have it in desserts, you know, to give it kind of body. Even in this baked soup, it will go creamy on the inside, like deliciously creamy, and then on the outside where it's getting baked, it'll go crunchy and gnarly, almost like it's just come out the oven baked again. So, already I might have thrown you if you've never made a soup like this. The only thing I can do is assure you how delicious it's going to be. So, bear with me on this one. We're just putting it together with a bit more of that and a bit more of that. Every country's got its soup, right? You know,
you got the Ministroni of Italy, the Gaspachia of Spain, we got tomato soup. And you know, as much as I love the great British tomato soup, you know, from a tin, this is just a different ball game. A different ball game. We're going to get big, big, deep flavors and that bread's going to suck up that broth, that stock, and you're going to get the silkiest, thickest soup you ever did see. Almost looks like when my kids used to play cooking and they throw it all in a pan, but it's going to be amazing. One more ingredient to go in and that's cheese. Now, the cheese of
choice here is gruya. You can use cheddar, you can use parmesan, you can use a cheese that you love. Ideally, it'll be something that kind of oozes and stretches beautifully. It has the most beautiful funky savory flavor. Great. About 70 g. I want to put some in it and some on it. That will be oozy and stringy and gorgeous. Just stir that through. I'll turn the heat off now. Look at that. Oh, yes. And it smells amazing, too. And look, what's really nice about this is if you're not a mushroom lover, you can swap out the mushrooms, go squash or pumpkin, you can go
carrots, you know, you can take another vegetable that you love, you know, fennel, um, and just go for it. Same process, same principle, same cooking method. It's all good. Have a little experiment. Give it a little kiss of olive oil just so it goes nice and crispy on top. You know, a few more bits of those thyme leaves. A little grating of gr cheese just on top. Look at that. Okay, now magic will happen in the oven cuz that's it. The oven's going to do all the hard work. It will go gnarly on top, creamy on the inside. So, in it goes for 25 minutes at 180° C, which is 350 fah.
I can't wait to show you what that looks like. So, it's had 25 minutes and it smells absolutely incredible. So, imagine this coming to your dinner table. Gnarly bits, silky soup, slices of mushroom, the cheesy bits. That is a mushroom soup, but not as you know it. Next level. So, I like to just let it sit at the table for a little bit. Let it cool down and it'll just like thicken up a little bit more. Gather the troops. Bowl it up. Just amazing. Come on. Let's serve up a little bit. This is my cheeky little taster. And of course, if your last little bit you put on top is a bit of crust and cheese, Oh, very hot. But I'm going to just go for it. M. That combo of thyme, garlic, and mushrooms
is just a winner. And the creaminess that you get from that baked spread is just phenomenal. And the great thing about this being like a family classic dish is other than it being delicious is you can make it in the morning. You can kind of just put it in the fridge and then reheat it. It's really good at batching and feeding a big old hoorde of people. Delicious.
