You often forget how many varieties of mushrooms there are in the world. When walking around Australian fruit and vegetable markets these days, we are thankfully greeting with a great many more varieties than we were growing up. The only benefit, in my opinion, of not having a core national cuisine means that our multicultural food community has caused shelves to be filled with a great many different items from all around the world – meaning that with a little searching you usually can find every ingredient you need to make that internationally influenced recipe you have been dreaming of.
While we have a lot of great mushroom varieties here in Australia, there are a plethora that we don’t have. A quick google search will have you pining to try a whole bunch of unusual looking mushrooms with the coolest of names – Pom pom mushroom, puff ball mushroom, hawk’s wing mushroom… who wouldn’t want to try those? The beauty of mushrooms is that each variety has its own unique characteristics, flavour and uses.
When presented with two rather large boxes of mushrooms recently from the Australian Mushroom Growers I was incredibly excited to get into the kitchen and see what I could create. One of the boxes yielded packets of various oriental mushroom varieties which instantly had me thinking about letting the gorgeous mushrooms shine in a quick and simple oriental mushroom soup.
They are all such beautiful mushrooms, so I couldn’t help but snap a few photos of them raw. Just in case you aren’t across the varieties used in this recipe, let me identify them for you using the picture top left. Bottom left of wooden tray are shiitake mushrooms and beside that are oyster mushrooms. Middle of the tray are shimeji mushrooms. Top left are king oyster and to the right of those are enoki mushrooms. It is the variety and beauty of these mushrooms that give the soup its appeal I think.
To add a little more protein to the soup, but still keeping it super healthy and gluten free, I added egg ‘noodles’ which are really just very thin omelettes cooked in a crepe pan, rolled and sliced into noodle shapes. You really can’t help but feel like you have done something great for your body after eating a bowl of this soup, and with a total cook time of 30 minutes, you can fit it into your busy day.
Oriental Mushroom Soup with Egg 'Noodles'
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 2 spring onions, finely sliced
- 1 garlic shoot, finely sliced
- 100g fresh shiitake mushrooms
- 100g oyster mushrooms
- 100g shimeji mushrooms
- 80g enoki mushrooms
- 100g king oyster mushrooms
- 3 cups vegetable stock (or Chicken Stock)
- 2 cups water
- 4 tablespoons light soy sauce
- 3 whole eggs
- 2 egg whites
- Fresh coriander sprigs
- 5-6 drops peanut oil
Remove the stems from the shiitake mushrooms then cut the shiitake and oyster mushrooms into slices. Slice the king oyster mushroom down the centre and then across, also into slices. Separate the shimeji mushrooms into single stem mushrooms and then separate the enokis into bunches of 3 or 4 and set all aside.
Heat oil in a large heavy based frypan over medium heat and sauté spring onions and garlic shoot pieces until fragrant. Add all mushrooms except the enoki mushrooms and sauté, stirring continually, for 2 minutes. Add vegetable stock, water and soy sauce and bring to the boil. Turn down the heat and simmer for 15 minutes after which, add the enoki mushrooms and simmer for another 5 minutes.
While the soup is simmering, prepare the egg noodles. In a small bowl whisk together eggs and egg whites. Heat a crepe pan over medium high heat then wipe base lightly with vegetable oil. Pour 1/4 cup of the egg mixture into the crepe pan and working extremely quickly, tilt and turn the pan until the mixture spreads evenly across the bottom in a thin circle. Cook till the edges begin to dry and lift form the pan, then flip and cook for 5 seconds and remove from pan, roll up and slice into thin strands. Repeat with remaining mixture.
Remove the soup from the heat and stir through coriander springs and peanut oil. To serve, distribute the egg 'noodles' between four bowls and top with the soup. If you like, you can sprinkle over Sichimi Togarashi (Japanese chilli flakes) to give it a kick.
Chew Town was not paid to develop this recipe, but was gifted the Mushrooms from the Australian Mushroom Growers, with thanks. If you would like to learn more about Australian mushrooms visit the website . If you are in Australia, share a photo of your mushroom meal when dining out during July and tag #MushroomMania2014 and you could win $100 to dine out on them! To read Chew Town’s disclosure policy please visit the About page.
Luuuurve mushrooms. No, really, I’d jump into bed with a King Brown right now. Sorry, champignon, you’re a little too ordinary.
Amanda, your soup is a true celebration of what I adore and I can only imagine I’d feel like I was being cleansed with that lovely broth and plethora of ‘shrooms.
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Love your photos..always!
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The picture is so vivid that it feels like I can almost eat off the screen. Nice!
I remember back in the days when the only mushrooms you could buy were the common button ones, and even they were considered pretty exotic. A lot of recipes back in the day that called for mushrooms would specify canned mushrooms! Anyway, lovely dish — thanks.
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Now that’s a nourishing looking soup! Love the delicate pile of egg ribbons on top too.
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yum.. this looks amazing. definitely could use a bowl for lunch now! thanks for sharing another great recipe – will be adding this one to my repertoire.
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That first photo is so beautiful that I wanna eat it! hahaha I’ve been looking for a new mushroom recipe to try! Thanks for the recipe Amanda.
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Absolute perfection in a bowl. Could you send some via carrier pigeon ASAP? #TIA
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Sensationally beautiful. That goes for the soup and your gorgeous raw mushroom shots. Soup pics rock too, but wow, how stunning do those mushrooms look!
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I love this! This proves that mushroom is another amazing and indeed
a magical plant. Thank you for sharing those mouth-watering recipe. Will surely give it a try. Amazing!
Looks absolutely delicious. Cannot wait to try this out myself. Mushrooms are just one of those ingredients that is meant to be eaten as soup.
Definitely sharing this amazing recipe with my friends and family.
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