Porcini Wild-Rice Soup

The biggest surprise about this soup was that my husband liked it much better than he thought, whereas I thought I'd like it much better than he did but ended up liking it less and a little less than I thought I would.

But in all honesty, it was probably due to my tainted perception after I bit down on something grainy and sandy after already being a bit nervous about that as I heard something gritty in the pot as I stirred it. I feel as though I attract grit in my food like white on rice. Why? Whyyyyyyyyy?

My guess is that some of the grit came from the porcini mushrooms or from the wild rice. So if you make this, you may want to rinse off your rice. You should also reserve just a bit of the mushroom liquid when adding it to the soup as it's possible some grit from the mushrooms will settle to the bottom during re-hydration.

Aside from this, it was a tasty, earthy, woodsy and meaty soup, thanks to the porcinis and wild rice. I agree with the authors that this would definitely make a great soup to serve at a dinner party or to friends if you want to impress them. There's just something classier about it than most soups.

The authors suggest using a blend of wild rices, but I could only find the black wild rice at our store. If you can, I'd try to find the blend though, to give the soup a bit more visual interest.

Oh, and no, I could not find any chervil at our store. They suggest that finding it may be challenging and that going on a hunt for it would make for a great blog entry. Sure, but as someone without a car, there was no way I was going hunting for anything on foot, especially not a garnish. I substituted it with a bit of dried parsley and some lemon zest, since they say the chervil has a lemony taste.

The cost of the soup was in the $10-12 range. Almost half of that was from the porcini mushrooms. Hopefully where you live you can get them for a bit less. Since everything costs more here in Seattle, I'm confident you can.

This recipe is on page 140 of Veganomicon.