Porcini & Potato soup recipe…

Here’s a recipe that definitely qualifies as Winter comfort food.

Ingredients
(enough to serve six people)

1.5 kg fresh porcini, carefully cleaned
2 kg potatoes, peeled and cut into even pieces
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
5 garlic cloves, peeled
100ml double cream (heavy whipping cream)
1 ciabatta loaf, cut into 6 slices at an angle for crostini
Parsley
Extra virgin olive oil

Simmer the potatoes in 11/2 times their volume of salted water until they begin to break up, about 25 minutes. Meanwhile, separate the porcini caps from the stalks and roughly chop the stalks and 4 of the garlic cloves together. Add the stalks and garlic to the cooked potatoes and simmer together for 5 minutes. Using a potato masher or slotted spoon start to mash the potatoes into a pulp. Continue until potato and water have become a thick soup.

Slice across the porcini caps as finely as you can, then add to the soup. Stir in the cream and season with salt and pepper. Stir together for 2-3 minutes, allowing the porcini slices to infuse their flavors into the rest of the soup, but retain a little texture, being barely cooked. 

Toast the crostini and rub with the remaining halved clove of garlic. Put a crostino in each serving bowl and spoon in the soup. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, sprinkle some chopped fresh parsley on top and serve.