Seeking a brand new soup or just something that pleasantly unfamiliar? Check out this Hungarian mushroom soup that’ll please every mouth!

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Hungarian soup culture is an intriguing one. Although they have more types of soup than dishes of some nations, probably not many of us would dive headless into exploring them.

It’s hard to categorize soups in general and any who has ever tried, failed at some point but let’s get on with it.

Most of the culinary world agrees that there are clear soups (that aren’t thickened) and thick soups that are made denser with various thickening agents such as cream, roux or simply puree the ingredients.

Apparently, Hungarians couldn’t find these categories fit their needs and created a category that sits right between the two. Many of their soups contain some sort of thickening agent, mostly roux, but not enough to make the soup as thick as we would expect them to be.

Plenty of their traditional soups, that were made with the few ingredients they had at hand, are just pieces of vegetables, pasta and sometimes some meat floating in roux hazed paprika flavored water.

„Lebbencs leves,” „kumpli leves” or „tarhonya leves” are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to showcase the ingenuity of creating various dishes from same, one would risk, dire ingredients.

Of course, when more ingredients are used, the possibilities are increasing exponentially with no end in sight.

Apart from a few exceptions where soup has all the carbs and protein, a Hun horde would ever need, Hungarian soups are fairly light dishes served as appetizers that set the mood for the starch and protein filled main meal which is generally served for lunch.

Or more precisely, the ones they call soup, are served as appetizers. Others, that many of us consider as thickened soup, are served as side dish for the main meal and called „fozelek.”

While diving into such depth of the intricacies of Hungarian cuisine may have very little use for most of us, some may find it useful when trying to understand why the Hungarian mushroom soup in Hungarian restaurants look totally different from the one on the world wide web.

Mostly because mushroom soup is not a thing in Hungary nor even in their thickened „fozelek” soup version. They do use it with sauces for mushroom pork chops though, it’s delicious!

Hungarian mushroom soup is something similar to French fries as none of them has much to do with their naming country, yet we stick with it.

The reason, we call mushroom soup Hungarian, is because we add the staples of Hungarian cuisine paprika and sour cream to it. Not to mention that all the other options that tries to merge paprika to mushroom soup struggles to get as good a ring to it as Hungarian mushroom soup.

So, since there are no rules or even previous examples of how Hungarian mushroom soup should look like, we can just get our favorite mushroom soup recipe, adding some paprika and sour cream will turn it into a brand new thing.

Sure, if we are into a more genuine experience and throw a spoonful of paprika into a can of mushroom soup seems below our level than making it from scratch will always taste better, especially with a dollop of sour cream.

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Ingredients

2 tablespoon / 30ml Cooking oil
2 cups / 300g Onion (diced)
2 pieces / 150g Carrot (diced)
2 stalks / 150g Celery (diced)
1 teaspoon / 5g Salt
3 cloves / 9g Garlic (finely cut or minced)
2 lb / 1kg Mushrooms (whole if small, quartered or sliced)
2 teaspoon / 4g Paprika
½ cup / 120ml Dry white wine (optional)
1 cup / 200ml Sour cream or Crème Fraîche
2 tablespoon / 8g Parsley (freshly chopped)
2 cups / 500ml Milk
4 tablespoon / 30g Plain white flour

How to make Hungarian mushroom soup

Heat cooking oil in a medium sized pot to high. Sauté (stir-fry) the diced onion with some salt until translucent / glassy look.
Mix in the similarly sized carrots and celery.
Reduce heat to medium to low then stir-fry until the onion caramelized, about 15 – 20 minutes.
Add the finely cut garlic, the sliced, diced or whole mushrooms and sauté until the mushroom somewhat collapses. Mix in the paprika.
If any wine is used, this is the time to pour it in, then cook away about half of it. Be aware of cooking away the alcohol is a myth. Check out how to cook with alcohol.
Mix in the sour cream and freshly cut parsley (freshly cut herbs shouldn’t be cooked too long so if we are unsure of the final cooking time, reserve parsley to the end). This will increase the overall fat content of the dish and makes it tastier but more calorie rich too. Skipping on sour cream when paprika is involved is a crime so think twice about it.
In a separate bowl whisk milk and flour evenly.
Pour the milky flour into the mushroom soup. Bring it to boil, stir it for couple of minutes until it starts to thicken.
Taste and flavor with additional salt and ground pepper if desired. If the soup seems too thin, simmer it a bit longer but keep in mind that upon cooling it will thicken. Also, don’t make the mistake of cooking this “soup” to any Hungarian or not without some pork chops and a side of freshly made gnocchi.