Saturday, September 13, 2008

Not French onion soup

Saturday 8.20pm

Mention onion soup and French onion soup is what immediately springs to mind. Made with beef stock, wine and onions, and served with cheese on toast, it is a perfect winter soup. But I didnt want that. No, I wanted something a bit lighter, so this is my version - an onion soup but definetely not French.

- Three big onions are peeled and chopped into your favourite shape. I like to half them and then slice thinly so that I get long thin pieces in my soup.
- Set them to cook very slowly in a quarter inch slice of butter with a little bit of olive oil along with the leaves from a couple of sprigs of thyme, probably a dessertspoonfull or so. Don't forget the extractor fan as well.

This is the important step. The onions must be cooked softly and slowly until they caramelise, going soft and golden brown because this is where the flavour develops. It will take ages, at least half an hour - mine took a good three quarters, so find something else to do meantime. I browsed the internet looking for french onion soup pictures and stumbled upon this blog.

- gradually add a pint and a quarter of vegetable stock then bring to the boil and simmer gently for fifteen minutes or so until it tastes good. 

"et voila" sorry, I mean there it is, onion soup.

Rather than cheese on toast I served mine with some grated parmesan and some cashew nuts that I made into a sort of cream by liquidising a handfull with a little water, enough to make a paste. Apart than that all it needed was some black pepper, oh and brown bread of course.



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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Glad you stumbled upon CM; hope you enjoy the risotto.

I'm a soup fiend -- I eat it nearly every day for lunch -- so I look forward to following your soup adventures.

Long live thyme!
Cheers,
Jodi

Peter said...

Agreed - there is never enough thyme

peter

Anonymous said...

If you want another variation on onion soup, try sage instead of thyme. This is more in keeping with the English variety than the French Onion Soup variety.
Anyway, I like the lighter look your soup has; the veggie stock must be a nice touch.

Peter said...

sage - I like the sound of that!
you would need to be carefull of the quantities I suppose, it can be quite strong.I have experimented with sage on and off but always seem to come back to thyme.

peter

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