Wild Rice and Mushroom Soup

This soup is earthy and creamy and chewy and delicious all at the same time. I think you could substitute some regular white rice for the half of the wild rice, since wild rice is pretty expensive, but they cook at different rates and I always have a problem with regular rice in soups, it keeps taking on water and expanding and getting more and more mushy and you have to add more water to make it soup again. But wild rice doesn't do that. It does expand a little with sitting, but not significantly like regular rice.

wild rice and mushroom soup

Wild Rice and Mushroom Soup
1 cup wild rice
2 cups vegetable or chicken stock, plus more to make it soupy
about 20 medium sized mushrooms
1 onion, diced
1 cup cream
salt, pepper to taste

Boil the wild rice in the stock in a large-ish pan until it is mostly cooked, it will still be kind of crunchy/chewy, but the grains will start to burst and the liquid will be mostly evaporated-about 50 minutes. While that is cooking, chop the mushrooms into smallish pieces, put in a dry, hot pan and cook for few minutes until the mushrooms shrink and release water. When it seems like they have released all of their juices, add a little bit of oil to the pan and sauté the diced onion in it until it is soft, mix in the mushrooms with the onion and sauté for another minute, the mushrooms should brown a little more and be very fragrant, the onions should be tender and translucent. Add the mushrooms/onions to the wild rice, add the cream and additional stock if needed to make it the right amount of soupiness that you like, bring to a gentle boil for a few more minutes until the soup thickens a little bit; the wild rice grains should be bursting, but they will still be chewy. Add salt and pepper to taste. Makes 4 servings.