Wild Rice and Mushroom Soup

The other day, Dad asked me if I had any recipes for Mushroom soup. I think he was thinking back to our trip to Slovenia (I still need to post that), where we had mushroom soup almost every night. I never had the chance this time, but Dad says the first time he ever visited Slovenia, his coworker helped him order a mushroom soup made from an assortment of mushrooms literally picked minutes before from the restaurant's own personal mushroom garden. It must have tasted like heaven.

Anyway, it turns out this recipe was not exactly what Dad had in mind. The soup we had in Slovenia was actually a Cream of Mushroom soup, but done so masterfully that we could not even taste the cream in it! It just tasted like this light, delicate, slightly opaque broth. So when I asked Dad if he wanted cream, he said no. So we settled on this recipe which, though creamless, was more like a stew than the delicious soup we both remembered. But the smell of the portobellos paired with the aromatic beef broth was still a pretty good success. I'd say it's not a 5 star soup, but it definitely hits the spot as comfort food.

Wild Rice and Mushroom Soup (Adopted from Fortuna Virilus)

Ingredients:

Olive oil
8 oz portobello mushrooms, sliced
1 carrot, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried parsley
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup wild rice (or any hard, long-grain rice)
2 cups beef stock
4 cups water, plus more if needed

1. Heat oil over medium heat in a medium saucepan. Add mushrooms and saute until tender, and then stir in carrot and garlic and saute for another minute.
2. Add basil, thyme, and salt and pepper, and stir well.
3. Add rice, stock, and water, bring to a boil, reduce heat, and let simmer until rice is tender (about 45 min), stirring occasionally. Keep an eye on it and add more water if necessary.