Just Bite Me!: Cassie's Homemade Mushroom Soup & Croutons

My girlfriend Cassie had started a new food blog right after mine was up. I had been following it ever since and there's one recipe that is so easy-peasy and dummy-proof that I just had to give it a go. I had slightly modified it because I didn't have bay leaves and a blender in my kitchen, so for the original recipe, click here.

If you wish to try this dish, let me know what your experience is like. I look forward to hearing from you!

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Cassie's Homemade Mushroom Soup & Croutons

1. Ingredients:
a. 6 pieces of garlic, chopped finely
b. 1 big shallot, also chopped finely
c. 10 pieces of canned button mushrooms, sliced thinly at first for easy fine chopping afterwards
d. Cooking oil
e. 3 tablespoons of butter
f. 1 tablespoon of chicken stock powder, diluted in 500ml water
g. 1 tablespoon of corn flour, diluted in 150ml water
h. A pinch of chopped dried mixed herbs (optional)
i. 4 pieces of sandwich bread

2 (i). Method for the soup:
a. Heat a tablespoon of cooking oil in a pot to melt 1 tablespoon of butter. The rest of the butter will be used for making croutons later.
b. Once the butter-oil mixture turns brown-ish, add in 3/4 of the garlic and all of the shallot (we're saving a bit of the garlic for the croutons later). Fry till they turn brown too.
c. Add in chopped mushrooms and stir till they're half cooked.
d. Pour in the diluted chicken stock and bring to boil.
e. Add diluted corn flour and bring the soup to boil again before adding salt and pepper.
f. Sprinkle a pinch of mixed herbs and you're done!

2 (ii). Method for the croutons:
i. Slice each piece of bread into 4 vertical strips, then cut 4 rectangular pieces from each strip.
ii. Divide the bread pieces into 2 batches.
iii. Heat a tablespoon of oil to melt 1 tablespoon of butter.
iv. Once the oil-butter combination turns caramel, add in half of the leftover chopped garlic and fry till they're brown. Remember that we are making two batches here, so don't add all the garlic in.
v. Stir in the first batch of croutons, making sure that each piece gets coated with the oil-butter mix. Quick stirring is needed here or you'll end up with some dry croutons and some soggy ones that had soaked up all the mixture.
vi. Once all the pieces are brown, remove them from the pan.
v. Repeat steps iii - vi for the second batch.

3. Portion size:
Makes four small bowls.

4. Cook's Notes:
a. I love using a bit of butter for frying, but I always found myself burning it on the stove as it melted. Then I discovered a trick used by the host of Chef At Home, which is a cooking show on the AFC channel, which requires adding a bit of cooking oil to prevent the butter from getting burnt. Click here for AFC's website, where you can get the recipes shown in the shows.

b. The reason I made croutons was because I didn't know how to make garlic bread. Anyway, croutons are easy to make once you get the hang of it. I used to burn mine when I first started making them, but with each mistake, you learn something new, like how not to repeat the same mistake the next time.

c. Dried mixed herbs can be easily purchased at your local supermarket. Some of the brands I've seen in my supermarket are McCormick's(which is priciest brand of herbs I've seen so far compared to other brands), Masterfoods(which is the one I'm using now) and First Choice (which I think is the cheapest amongst all three). Mine consists of rosemary, oregano and two other herbs that I've forgotten (I'm too lazy to dash into the kitchen for a looksie now).

d. Do remember to dilute the cornflour in water before adding it to soup. Adding it directly to the boiling soup will make it clumpy. Chefs using cornflour for soups usually strain the soup before serving to get rid of the clumpy bits. At least, that's what I read.

And due to *ahem* popular requests from the readers of this blog, I finally dusted up my cam and took some pics while cooking! Sorry for the amateur-ish shots though; I was holding the cam using my left hand because I didn't want to dirty it with my right hand.