This story is part of On Repeat, a series in which we ask top chefs, cookbook authors, and other famous foodies about the dishes they just can’t quit.
Fun mushroom fact: They’re 90% water, most of which vanishes when they cook, resulting in major ’shroom shrinkage. That means it takes a truly impressive volume of fungi to make a pot of mushroom soup.
Typically that would lead to tons of chopping, but when bestselling cookbook writer Adeena Sussman has a hankering for this highly repeatable multi-mushroom soup from her newest cookbook, Shabbat, she puts the food processor to work. “It saves so much time compared to chopping by hand,” says Sussman, who, in addition to her own books, has co-authored 14 others, including Chrissy Teigen’s Cravings series.
Why I love it
“I love how warming and filling and ‘meaty’ it is, and I love that it’s vegan. White miso gives it such a nice, mouthwatering umami boost. And even though it’s vegetarian, this soup eats like something more substantial, which I think is always great. You could double up the portion and have it with some crusty bread as a meal, which I always enjoy.”
What I’ve changed
“You could use different mushrooms, and if you don’t have the budget or the time for quote-unquote fancy mushrooms you could make the whole thing with button mushrooms or portobellos and it would be equally delicious. (If the stems are tender, I use those too.)
“You could use all soy sauce instead of miso, and you can change the herbs that you put in it. If you add carrots and celery, it’s kind of going to take it in the direction of a beef stew-y flavor, and I sort of like that. I think adding a little more heat could be fun, maybe jalapeño or more chile flakes or cayenne or Aleppo pepper, and you can also reduce it [to make it thicker] or thin it out to your liking.”
What else I’m into right now
Fermented fruit drinks. When I have an abundance of fruit that I want to preserve and capture, I’ll submerge it and some spices in sugar and then ferment it slightly to make a fermented syrup, and then refrigerate it and use it in cocktails and sparkling fermented fruit drinks called gazoz. (I wrote about them in the book I did with Benny Briga from Café Levinsky in Tel Aviv.)
Cold brew to compost. I’ve been drinking a lot less coffee out, because it’s economical and to save packaging. So I’ve been drinking my own really good cold brew, and then I donate the coffee grinds to a friend’s composting pile.
Scraps to stock. I freeze vegetable scraps from all of my recipe developing and make vegetable stock from all of the different scraps that I have. I just keep a bag in the freezer and I keep adding to it. And then when I have a bunch of that, I make stock.