Onion Soup
I don't know why I've been haunted by the thought of onion soup this winter, but it is so. I have been reading recipes and dreaming about making a lovely pot of soup from almost-scratch (using commercial broth, because I don't think I'm really up to brewing my own stock quite yet.)
With more snow in the forecast, I decided, today was the day. I broke out my ancient Julia Child, did some searching on epicurious.com, and came up with an amalgam. Basically I used Julia's technique and a recipe from Gourmet magazine found on epicurious for the seasoning, which added thyme and bay leaves to the onions during the carmelizing process. I also used Beaujolais rather than the white wine Julia calls for, only because, onion soup is a staple of the French bistro and they serve a great deal of Beaujolais there.
I discovered several things: 1) the function of the crouton is to hold the cheese up during the broiling process. Even though I generally don't eat the crouton (soggy toast not being my favorite thing), next time, I'll have one ready. I think probably using French baguettes isn't necessary, but a couple of toast rounds the size of my soup bowls, is. 2) My broiler works. Really well. I'm glad I didn't set off the fire alarms.
Most importantly, 3). While there's a fair amount of time involved, it was worth it. Even if just for me. Perhaps most especially, just for me. But the collateral benefit is that now that I've done it once, I can visualize doing it again, and better, and sharing it with friends later on. It really does taste like the onion soup I had once, in Paris, on the Champs Elysee.
I bought lots of onions because they were on special this week, so I'm sure I'll be doing it again. In the meantime, I have enough left for tomorrow!
With more snow in the forecast, I decided, today was the day. I broke out my ancient Julia Child, did some searching on epicurious.com, and came up with an amalgam. Basically I used Julia's technique and a recipe from Gourmet magazine found on epicurious for the seasoning, which added thyme and bay leaves to the onions during the carmelizing process. I also used Beaujolais rather than the white wine Julia calls for, only because, onion soup is a staple of the French bistro and they serve a great deal of Beaujolais there.
I discovered several things: 1) the function of the crouton is to hold the cheese up during the broiling process. Even though I generally don't eat the crouton (soggy toast not being my favorite thing), next time, I'll have one ready. I think probably using French baguettes isn't necessary, but a couple of toast rounds the size of my soup bowls, is. 2) My broiler works. Really well. I'm glad I didn't set off the fire alarms.
Most importantly, 3). While there's a fair amount of time involved, it was worth it. Even if just for me. Perhaps most especially, just for me. But the collateral benefit is that now that I've done it once, I can visualize doing it again, and better, and sharing it with friends later on. It really does taste like the onion soup I had once, in Paris, on the Champs Elysee.
I bought lots of onions because they were on special this week, so I'm sure I'll be doing it again. In the meantime, I have enough left for tomorrow!