In a pan melt the butter over medium heat and sauté the onions with the garlic (if adding any) for about 5 minutes.
Add the carrot, leek, chopped or sliced mushrooms (optionally, leave a handful to pan fry for decoration), the Worcestershire, the soy sauce, a pinch of salt*, freshly ground pepper and the turmeric and sauté for a further 5 minutes.
Add the stock, the milk and when it starts boiling, reduce slightly the heat, cover and allow to simmer for a further 10 minutes.
Reduce the heat to minimum and using a hand electric blender, blend and cream the soup to desired texture. Allow to simmer for a further 2-3 min.
Add the crème fraîche, a squeeze of lemon, mix all well and turn the heat off.
Ladle the soup out into bowls, garnish and decorate with a sprinkle of long pepper powder or a good generous pinch of freshly ground black pepper, some fresh thyme sprigs, parsley and some pan fried sliced mushrooms and serve immediately while nice and hot with some nice homemade bread or garlic bread. Delicious!
Notes
Chicken or vegetable stock and * saltI always make my own stock and have some in the fridge but if you use market bought one please be aware of the salt level ( buy low sodium) and reduce the salt you add to the soup. The soy sauce as well as Worchester sauce also add salt to the soup so be aware.Mushrooms types I have used chestnut buttons mushrooms also known as crimini mushrooms which in reality are young or baby Portobello mushrooms. In the past I have used all sorts of mushrooms and the more you mix them the better reallyhere are some types of mushrroms I have used in the past :
White button mushrooms
Shiitake
Portobello
Oyster mushrooms (my top favourite)
Chanterelle
Porcinni (frsh or dry ones)
Morel mushrooms ( especially when going back home)
Agaric honey fungus or armillaria mellea ( found in local forests and enjoyed going picking as a child) - we call them ghebe only available mid September and the whole of October, so very short season.
Here is more about mushrooms types if you want to know what to choose from the market. I source my dry mushrooms here.