Break off an ounce of baking chocolate and compare weights.

Or just use 1/4 cup of mushrooms....how bad can it be?
Linda C

Good question, dcarch. It makes 8-10 servings. It uses 4 cups of beef broth plus other stuff.

Linda good idea. The seesaw method.

Pam - I just weighed the dried porcinis I have on hand, 3/4 ounce. I put them in a measuring cup, 3/4 cup. Therefore if you have about a cup I'd say you have about an ounce.

Yay, because I just decided to use all of them and hope for the best. Thanks, FOAS. I thought of you as I minced the garlic with my special garlic mincer.

I'm not so sure this soup is going to be a success. We'll see.

This was the worst soup I have ever made and it is going down the drain before it even has a chance to cool off.

How about the recipe.....so no one ever makes it again....

What where the other ingridients?
I like making soups with porcini mushrooms. Simple ones, just with potatoes or with noodles. They are quite good for comfort food.
Olga

I already tossed the recipe, which I had copied from a cookbook at the library.

As I recall the ingredients were the dried porcini mushrooms, the water you soaked them in plus additional water, beef broth, garlic, leeks, button mushrooms, marsala wine and cream.

It's made in a slow cooker. The other recipes in the cookbook still looked good so I am not knocking the entire cookbook, but I followed this recipe faithfully and it was awful.

I'd love a recipe for T&T Mushroom Soup. Maybe what I want is cream of mushroom. A local restaurant makes a simple one with veal stock that is divine.

Here is a link that might be useful: Italian Slow Cooker Cookbook

We loved this mushroom soup:

* Exported from MasterCook *

Soup, Mushroom Hungarian

Recipe By : Moosewood
Serving Size : 4 Preparation Time :1:00
Categories : Soups & Stews

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
12 ounces mushrooms (shitake,cremini,oyster) -- sliced
2 cups onions -- chopped
1 garlic clove -- crushed
4 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons dillweed
1 tablespoon Hungarian paprika
1 tablespoon tamari soy sauce
1 teaspoon salt
black pepper
2 cups chicken stock
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup Italian parsley -- chopped
fresh ground pepper -- to taste
1 cup sour cream

1) Saute onions in 2 tablespoons of butter and salt lightly. A few minutes later, add mushrooms, garlic, 1 teaspoon dill, 1/2 cup stock, tamari and paprika. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes

2) Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a large saucepan. Whisk in flour and cook, whisking, a few minutes. Add milk. Cook, stirring frequently, over low heat about 10 minutes -- until thick

3) Stir in mushroom mixture and remaining stock. Cover and simmer 10 to 15 minutes.

4) Just before serving, add salt and pepper, lemon juice, sour cream and, if desired, an extra 1 teaspoon of dill. Serve garnished with parsley.

Andrea

i LOVE dill, I LOVE mushrooms and I LOVE sour cream, so this should be a winner for me. Thanks for sharing.

Well, your first recipe sounded good. I would have used homemade chicken stock, however. Leeks only. Or garlic and onion. And milk or cream with some flour to thicken.

Here's how I make mushroom soup.
1 pound of mushrooms, I usually use half white button and 1/2 baby bellas.
1 yellow onion
4 T butter
4 T flour
1 qt chicken broth
3 oz cream cheese,
1 cup half and half (or milk)
3 Tablespoons dry sherry wine
Salt and pepper to taste.
Finely chop 8 oz...half...or the mushrooms and the onion.
Slice the other 8 oz of mushrooms.
Sautee the chopped mushrooms and onion in the butter, when most of the moisture has been cooked out, sprinkle in the flour and over low heat, whisking constantly, add the chicken broth.
cover and simmer 30 to 40 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Cut the cream cheese into bits and add to the soup, whisking to melt the cheese into the soup ( some store brands of cream cheese never seem to melt and will stay in hard globs, Philadelphia cream cheese always smooths out easily)
Add the cream or milk, re heat to serving temperature (do not boil!) add sherry taste for seasoning ( I add no salt, I find the broth is salty enough) I like a generous amount of fresh ground black pepper, and serve.
Linda C

Dried mushrooms can be very tough even they are reconstituted, especially the stems.

Many dried mushrooms are expensive, and the stems are very flavorful and a shame to throw away.

Here is an idea for you to try.

Before I soak the mushrooms, I cut off the stems and use a coffee grinder to turn them into mushroom powder. It only takes a few seconds. The mushroom powder then also gets incorporated into the recipes.

dcarch

Linda, that sounds good. Now I am determined to find a mushroom soup that I like.

Dcarch, I did throw away the stems of the button mushrooms, but not the dried porcini. They all went into the ghastly soup. I agree that the more flavorful stuff you put into a soup the better. I think the recipe I tried had too much water. One ounce of dried porcinis cost $5. I must have thrown $20 worth of stuff down the drain.

keep the stems of the button mushrooms... I have sometimes made soup from just the stems when I needed a lot of mushroom caps to stuff.

I use 'leftover' fresh mushroom stems
To make mushroom broth.
Very good and flavorful,
Can be used in lots of things.

Next time I make it, though,
I'm going to whirl it in the blender,
To puree it.
Thanks for the idea, dcarch.

Rusty

Your description sounds like a classic combination of flavors, and it seems like you could vary the quantities of everything quite a lot and still end up with a good result. Was it a large amount of wine? Marsala can be overpowering, especially in a braise. Otherwise, I'm wondering whether there could have been a quality problem with one of the ingredients- like the dried mushrooms were tasteless, the garlic was sprouted and had that pungent garbage taste, or the button mushrooms were past their prime.

Could have been all of the above! Does garlic taste bad when it starts to sprout? Mine had a little green inside but nothing that had grown leaves yet. I can't remember the amt of wine but it was 4 cups of beef broth and 3 cups of water.

I am so cooking challenged beyond the ordinary things I made for my family when they were growing up.

I notice a difference between fresh garlic and old/sprouted garlic. The difference seems to fall by the wayside if it's well sauteed, but if it's just cooked in the broth, I think the final product could be much different. Was the Marsala good enough to drink?

I suggest the problem with the recipe was the slow cooker. dried porcinis have a very pungent flavor....consider the amount of mushrooms that would be were the not dried...
And the slow cooker just concentrated the flavor. I'll bet it was too "earthy" tasting...