The Gift Of Fungus

Last week some neighbors of ours gave us a couple of bags of mushrooms sourced from local Brussels growers - Wild Eastons.  Oyster and Lion's Mane shrooms to be exact.  They had travel plans so we scored a gift of two big packages of beautiful fungi.  

For a couple of days I pondered what to do with them.  Pizza came to mind first.  A pasta dish next. And then a light came on; how about soup?  Homemade mushroom soup.  Consulting with the missus she agreed.  And suggested that there was a good mushroom soup recipe in the older of her two Moosewood cookbooks; the 1974 edition.  She shared that she used to make it for herself back in the day.

So I looked it-up; Mollie Katzen's Hungarian Mushroom Soup. And I had everything needed on hand to bring this recipe to life.

Upon serving, Jill declared, This is the soup I remember!  And it was fantastic; a rich and hearty mix of two mushrooms in a chicken stock accented with three kinds of dairy and a couple types of Hungarian paprika.  The only substitution I made to the recipe (linked above) was heavy cream instead of milk.  Because I could.

I'd make it again.   Come to think of it, Until now I don't ever recall knowingly eating a Lion's Mane mushroom before. Fantastic!