Clear button-mushroom soup
Browning button mushrooms creates the flavour for this clear soup. Water and a little soy sauce turn the pan juices into a surprisingly savoury broth.
- Prep
- 5 min
- Cook
- 15 min
- Total
- 20 min
- Makes
- Serves 4 as a side
Your new skill: Building soup flavour by browning mushrooms
For a little background, read Can a menu word tell you how food was cooked?.
Your ingredients
Get ready: Kitchen scales, chopping board, mixing bowls, measuring spoons and a suitable saucepan or frying pan.
- 225 g small button mushrooms
- 2 tbsp neutral cooking oil
- 950 ml water
- 1½ tsp light soy sauce
- Salt to taste
- 2 tbsp cornflour mixed with 2 tbsp cold water, optional
- A small handful coriander, chopped
- 1 spring onion, sliced
Let’s make it
-
Prepare the mushrooms
Wipe or wash the mushrooms and dry them thoroughly. Pull off the stalks but keep them: they go into the soup too.
-
Brown without fussing
Heat the oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Arrange the caps with their hollow sides facing up and scatter in the stalks. Reduce to medium and leave until the undersides brown and little pools of mushroom juice collect inside the caps. Resist constant stirring.
-
Make the broth
Carefully add the water and soy sauce. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 5 minutes. Taste before adding salt. For a slightly fuller broth, stir the optional cornflour mixture again, pour it in and simmer for 30 seconds.
-
Finish fresh
Add coriander and spring onion just before serving. You have made a broth from the mushrooms themselves: handy knowledge for your next noodle bowl.
What to try next
Try Shanghai spring-onion oil noodles or Golden pan-fried tofu for your next kitchen project.
Keeping it: Cool leftovers and refrigerate within 2 hours. Eat within 48 hours, reheating only once until steaming hot throughout.
