Christmas Day Lunch: Jamie Oliver Inspired Chunky Mushroom Soup with truffle oil and summer truffles, served with garlic toast

For Christmas day lunch, it will usually be something light since the timing between meals are quite close. Soup is the perfect option -- though it looks rather simple in nature, it is the most time consuming dish I had to make on Christmas Day. Right after breakfast at 8am, I started making the chicken stock (click here for instructions on how to make chicken stock), which takes roughly 2 hours. If you would like this to be vegetarian, by all means use a vegetarian stock. 

Since my daughter and mother both love mushroom soup, I decided to make this for lunch. I adapted Jamie Oliver's recipe to make my version of chunky mushroom soup. I used white button, grey oyster, white oyster and cep/porcini mushrooms for my version-- you could also use chanterelles, girolles, trompettes de mort, shitake if available. Since we like our mushroom soup creamy, I added 100ml of dairy whipping cream at the end but you could skip this if you find it too rich. 

If I could say so myself, it's a rather delicious soup and we thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Chunky mushroom soup with truffle oil and summer truffles, served with garlic toast

Chunky mushroom soup
Preparation time: 15-20 minutes
Cooking time: 45-50 minutes (not including time to make stock)
Serves 4-5

Ingredients
A small handful of cep/porcini mushrooms
115g white button mushroom, cut into small pieces
100g grey oyster mushroom, cut into small pieces
200g white oyster mushroom, cut into small pieces
2 clove garlic, peeled and minced
1 onion, peeled and chopped finely
2 tbsp olive oil
100ml whipping cream (in KL supermarkets, it's hard to find single/double cream)
1 1/2 tbsp mascarpone cheese
1 litre chicken or vegetable stock
A handful of parsley, finely chopped
A knob of butter
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Truffle oil
Summer truffles

You can get cep/porcini mushrooms from Ben's Independent Grocer, Publika

It makes the soup much more luxurious

Four types of mushroom

1. Soak porcini/cep mushrooms in a bowl of warm water for 15 minutes, then remove and leave it to dry. Soak in boiling water for another 10 minutes, rinse and chopped roughly ready for adding. In a large pot over medium high heat, add oil and fresh mushroom (grey/white oyster and white button) and stir around quickly for a minute.  Add the garlic, butter, and onion.

2. After a minute, you will notice some moisture cooking out of the mushrooms. At this point, add the porcini mushrooms. Strain the soaking liquid, removing any grit and add to the pot. Carry on cooking for about 15 minutes until most of the moisture disappears.

3. Add your stock and bring to the boil. Simmer for another 20 minutes over medium low heat. Remove half the soup and using a hand blender, whiz it to a puree (Note: If you like it less chunky, then puree more of the soup). Pour it back in, add the parsley and mascarpone cheese as well as whipping cream (if using) and season to taste with salt and pepper.

4. For the garlic toast, click on the recipe here. All ingredients and steps are the same, however please omit the Parmesan cheese. It will take about 10 minutes, so you can put this in the oven before you blend the soup.

Garlic butter

5. Serve the soup together with the garlic toast. Add a few drops of truffle oil and a few thin shavings of summer truffles and garnish with a parsley leaf and a few drops of cream.

Gone in 10 minutes! 

Garlic toast

Goes well together

Baby D enjoyed the garlic toast.. he had a few pieces.

Baby C also enjoyed her garlic toast, and she also had a serving of mushroom soup, made with love.

Yummy!

Full set of photos available to view here.