Hungarian Mushroom Soup

One of my resolutions was to experiment with different ingredients and learn new recipes...

After our fab Hungarian lunch at Hanna's a few days ago, I thought I'd try making a version of that soup myself...

I already had most of the ingredients. I only needed to get the fresh pre-sliced mushrooms.

Instead of canned or boxed chicken broth, I used this new chicken base, "Better than Bouillon". My older one, the Knorr Roasted Chicken Base is almost gone. I used to be able to order it off Amazon but it's no longer available (a 3 pack was $20). I found the other brand at Fresh & Easy for $5.99'ish.

This is almost gone too. The color of this chicken base is lighter than my Knorr.

I just dissolve one tablespoon for each 8 oz. of water.

Dill is an ingredient I've never cooked with before. It smells so good! Kind of like licorice, but not.

This is one of the most easiest recipes I've ever done. The most time consuming thing was chopping up the onions. Here are they sauteeing in...glorious butter!

Smells even better when you add the mushrooms and they begin to cook down and release their fragrance...

My mis en place - the chicken broth, sweet paprika, soy sauce, and dill. I used fresh instead of dried. In retrospect, I should have put in the fresh dill towards the end.

The soup looked so pretty and vibrant...

until I added the sour cream.

Then it turned kind of gray.

I was a bit bummed because this seemed "heavier" than the version we had at Hanna's. I think I might have been too heavy handed with that sour cream.

The important thing was that it tasted delicious! This was pretty good for a first try. I'll have to play around with this next time to make the soup a little bit lighter in appearance.
Hungarian Mushroom Soup
(recipe courtesy of allrecipes.com

Ingredients:
4 tbsp unsalted butter
2 cups chopped onions
1 lb. fresh mushrooms, sliced
2 tsp dried dill weed (I used fresh)
1 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 cups chicken broth
1 cup milk
3 tbsp all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
ground black pepper to taste
2 tsp lemon juice
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley (I bought the Italian parsley and didn't use it because I think it was supposed to be the regular parsley, darnit)
1/2 cup sour cream

Directions:
1.  Melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat. Saute the onions in the butter for 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and saute for 5 more minutes. Stir in the dill, paprika, soy sauce and broth. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes.

2.   In a separate small bowl, whisk the milk and flour together. Pour this into the soup and stir well to blend. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

3.   Finally, stir in the salt, ground black pepper, lemon juice, parsley and sour cream. Mix together and allow to heat through over low heat, about 3 to 5 minutes. Do not boil. Serve immediately.

(Serves 6)

Upcoming recipes - trying to recreate that Chicken Paprikash and the Beef Goulash!