Sunday Night Portobello Mushroom Soup With Gruyere Toasties

• 50g butter
• 1 red onion, peeled and roughly chopped
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 4 big garlic cloves, crushed
• 600g Portobello mushroms, sliced
• 5 sprigs thyme
• 2 bay leaves
• 5 cups good quality chicken stock
• 1/2 cup cream
• 3 tablespoons cream
• 2 tablespoons sherry
• 4 small brown mushrooms, thinly sliced
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 8 slices good quality wholemeal bread
• 1 1/2 cups Caramelised onions / onion jam
• 3 tablespoons butter

1. Heat the butter in a large heavy-based saucepan and cook onions with sea salt and pepper over a medium/gentle heat for 10 minutes or until softened. Add garlic, mushrooms, thyme and bay leaves. Cook for a further 15 minutes over a medium heat, stirring every few minutes until mushrooms are pretty well cooked.
2. Add stock, bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer for half an hour. Add cream, milk and sherry and cook a further 2 minutes. Take off the heat, remove thyme stalks (the leaves will have all dropped off) and bay leaves. transfer to a food processor and whiz until combined.
3. When ready to serve taste for seasoning, then in a small fry pan cook extra small mushrooms in olive oil over a medium heat for about 3-4 minutes or until almost crispy. Drizzle with a little extra cream, garnish with mushrooms and optional micro greens and serve with Gruyere and caramelised onion toasties.
4. While soup is heating heat too large fry pans. Butter bread and put 4 slices in (2 in each pan), buttered-side down. Top with evenly divided caramelised onions and Gruyere cheese, and finally the extra bread slices, butter-side up. When toasties are golden on the bottom, carefully flip and cook the other side - about 5-6 minutes all up. Deliciousness.

butter, red onion, salt, garlic, thyme, bay leaves, chicken stock, cream, cream, sherry, brown mushrooms, olive oil, wholemeal bread, onion, butter

Taken from food52.com/recipes/20736-sunday-night-portobello-mushroom-soup-with-gruyere-toasties (may not work)