Mushroom Soup in Cream Of Coconut

Cream of Coconut and Mushroom Soup

When it comes to mushrooms I get as innovative as possible to make the recipe packed with nutrition, flavor and taste. Mushroom soup with herbs, cream of mushroom soup now what? I looked at the remainder of beans and a carrot in the fridge and decided to make a thick, Coconutty flavored sour and sweet mushroom soup which will have added flavor and nutrition. The result was amazing and the gentle flavor of lemon grass added the zing to the soup.

Nutritional value of the soup:

These are approximate values for the total soup prepared from 100 gm mushrooms, 50 gm carrot, 25 gm French beans, 100 ml fresh thick creamy coconut milk and 20 gm curd of skimmed milk.

Calories 248

Saturated Fats 20.0565 gm (Mainly from Coconut milk)

Cholesterol 0.408 (From skimmed milk curd)

Poly unsaturated fats 0.16 gm (from mushrooms)

Mono unsaturated fats 0.001 gm

Sodium 21 mg (From Mushrooms, beans and curd)

Carbs 23 gm (from mushrooms, carrot and beans coconut milk)

Sugars 8.5 gm (Mainly from carrot)

Proteins 5.7 gm (From mushrooms, beans, curd)

Dietary fibers 6 gm (From mushrooms, carrots and beans mainly)

Vitamins A, C miniscule amount of Vitamin B if found

Minerals Iron, Calcium

Medicinal value: Anti- microbial, anti-viral, anti-bacterial, anti-carcinogenic. These medicinal qualities are imparted by fresh coconut milk and lemon grass.Coconut milk has fats from Lauric acid, which is found in mother’s milk also and helps in brain development and bone health.

Preparation Time: 15-20 minutes

Cooking Time: 15 minutes

Servings: 4 Medium servings

Ingredients Required for Making Mushroom Soup In cream of Coconut:

• 100 gm. Button Mushrooms/ Table mushrooms
• 50 gm. Carrot (1 medium size carrot)
• 25 gm. French beans
• 3-4 fresh leafs of Lemon grass
• 20 gm. Curd of skimmed milk
• 1/2 Teaspoon Black / white Pepper powder
• Salt to taste
• 1/2 Teaspoon Olive oil

Direction for Making Mushroom Soup in Cream of Coconut:

       How to make coconut Milk:

• Grate kernel of a coconut and pulse it in the mixer with as little water (50-75 ml added in small portions) as possible till it turns to paste.
• Put the paste in a muslin cloth and squeeze out thick creamy coconut milk. One coconut should give 100 ml thick milk. The rest of the solid can be pulsed in mixer adding 100 ml water and then squeezed to take out all milk from it. This milk will be thin and can be used to make coconut gravy for savories.

Fresh thick creamy Milk o0f Coconut

• Whisk the curd to make it free of lumps.
• Wash and dry the mushrooms.
• Separate the stalks and head of mushrooms. Cut the stalks to very fine pieces (Forgot to click pic) and slice the heads (caps of mushrooms) to 1/2 cm. thick slices.
• Wash carrot and beans. De-vein the beans. Do not peel the carrots just remove the fibrous roots. Peeling causes loss of nutrients of carrot.
• Cut carrot and beans to small pieces.

Mushrooms and veggies

• Cut the lemon grass to approximately 1 inch pieces.
• Heat 1/2 teaspoon olive oil in a thick bottom pan. When the oil is hot add lemon grass pieces and cook for 30 sec. This will cause the flavor of lemon grass to seep in oil.

Lemon grass in Olive oil

• Add finely chopped beans and carrot.
• Cook for a min. or so on medium flame with continuous stirring. Do not cover.

Veggies being sauteed

• Add thick creamy milk of coconut and bring the heat to high. Cook with stirring till it starts boiling. Lower the flame and cook for 2 min maximum.

Veggies cooking in cream of coconut

• Add finely chopped stalk  and mushroom cap pieces and cook for a 2 minutes on medium flame with stirring.

Mushroom added to veggies cooked in cream of coconut

• Add curd and cook on medium flame with stirring.

Cream of coconut and Mushroom soup before pepper is added

• Add pepper mix and give it a final boil.

Pepper added to the soup

• Switch off the gas and add salt as per requirement.
• Mix nicely and serve hot creamy mushroom soup in cream of coconut, loaded with nutrients. Flavor and taste.

Cream of Coconut and Mushroom Soup

Tips:

• Devein the beans as the veins of beans are very unpalatable in soup.
• Remove any dirt and fibrous roots from carrot but avoid peeling, else you will risk loosing many nutrients of carrots.
• Finely chopped stalks will make the soup creamier.
• If you will cut big and thick pieces of beans and carrots they will remain undercooked and in process to cook them you may turn the veggies mushy and mushrooms chewy.

Suggested Variations;

• Finely chopped fennel can replace lemon grass.
• Fresh herbs (Celery/parsley) can be added for additional flavor. Dried herbs did not give good result. So I prefer fresh herbs which give flavor as well as crunchy texture to the soup.
• Lemon grass has antibacterial quality thus adds to the medicinal value of soup thus instead of replacing it I prefer making addition of herbs.
• If you wish to reduce  then quantity of coconut milk can be reduced to half, replacing the rest half with skimmed milk.
• When in hurry I just pulse the mushroom stalks and caps gently to get a nice non-gooey mixture. Soups comes out great only pieces of mushrooms become too small. you can pulse the stalks and cut the caps/heads of mushroom. Much creamier soup will be made.