Broccoli Soup with Japanese Wild Mushrooms

  • 1 head of broccoli, florets only
  • 2 types of mushrooms (I used Japanese brown and Maitake), sliced
  • fresh parsley, chopped
  • a squeeze of lemon juice
  • one clove of garlic, peeled and whole
  • olive oil, to drizzle

This dish was amazingly delicious. A perfect dish to come home from work to cook - it takes absolutely no time (about 10 mins), tastes wonderful and is very healthy.

This is based on Gordon Ramsay's broccoli soup recipe, but he serves his with crispy bacon and almonds. I tried that yesterday and found it to be quite bland and today discovered that the soup goes much better with some delicious, flavoursome, earthy mushrooms. The crispy bacon and almonds combination serves my asparagus soup much better (come on, asparagus and bacon? that's a no-brainer).

In a nutshell, I have a better palate than Gordon Ramsay. *pumps fist in air*

Serves 1.

  1. Boil lightly salted water.

  2. Dunk the broccoli florets in the boiling water. Cover.

  3. Heat some butter to a pan with a little olive oil. Toss the mushrooms with the whole garlic clove in the hot oil. The garlic clove is just there to lightly perfume the mushrooms, not so much to flavour it. Season with freshly ground salt and pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice. Add the parsley, toss, remove and discard the garlic clove.

  4. After about 4 mins, remove the florets from the water, but keep the water bubbling. Blend the florets with a food processor. Take the water off the heat and add a little to the broccoli puree. Blitz. Keep adding a little water and blitzing until you reach your desired consistency (once you know roughly how much water you need you can do this in one step next time). Season.

  5. Pour soup into a bowl. Top with the sauteed mushrooms. Drizzle with olive oil and give it a grind of pepper.

Broccoli, water and mushrooms. It sounds so simple, but it's absolutely delicious.