Saturday, April 15, 2017

Trying Something New in our French Onion Soup

One of Suzy's favourite things is French Onion Soup. With beef broth as the base it has sadly been off the menu since she became a vegetarian last spring. However, this past winter her mother, Marilyn, mistook our vegetable stock for beef stock and the thought occurred... Why not make it with vegetable stock? Even an ancient recipe (it features in Apicus' 4th century treatise De Re Cucinare) can be fiddled with! Good Friday seemed to be just the right occasion to try it out as part of a meatless feast with the usual suspects. Their verdict? So delicious that everyone has asked for recipe. Without further ado here it is!

Peel, halve, and finely slice:
16 medium onions (about three pounds)
In a large dutch oven over medium-low heat add:
4 tbsp of butter
4 tbsp of olive oil
When the butter and oil is hot add the onions and stir to coat them. Cover the pot and allow to cook for 15 minutes. Uncover, increase the heat to medium, and add:
2 tsp of salt 
1/2 tsp of sugar
Continue to cook until the onions are a rich golden-brown, stirring frequently, about one hour.  When the onions are ready add:
1/4 cup of all purpose flour
and stir constantly for 3 minutes. Add:
3 liters of vegetable stock made from roasted vegatables
1 cup of dry french white wine
1/4 cup of cognac
Pinch of thyme
Bring the soup to a simmer, cover partially, and reduce heat and cook for another 30 minutes, stirring and skimming periodically.While the soup is simmering Preheat the oven to 325 dgerees and cut:
1 baguette into 1/2" rounds
Arrange them on a parchment covered baking sheet and toast them for 15 minutes in the oven. Take them out and brush both sides with:
Olive oil
and rub them with
1 clove of garlic, cut in half.
Toast them for another 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and switch it to broil. Distribute the soup into oven-proof ramekins or french onion soup bowls (use a canning funnel to keep the bowls clean) and add
2 toasted rounds of baguette 
to each bowl.  Arrange the bows on a baking sheet and distribute
8 oz Gruyere, grated
across the bowls. Place the sheet under the broiler and cook until the cheese is bubbling and just beginning to brown. Carefully serve the hot bowls!


P.S. We use very little salt when we make our stock. If you use salted stock please check before you add any more salt!

The Secret to Great Vegetable Stock

The last time my mother-in-law, Marilyn, came for dinner we served a homemade barley stew. She thought it was great and said to my vegetarian wife, Suzy, "But you used beef stock!" 

"No, its vegetable stock!" Suzy replied. 

The best news of all is that it is easy to make stock that will keep everyone guessing. Start to finish a batch of vegetable stock takes two hours. Meat and bone broths can take the better part of a day. The secret to giving your vegetable stock the same richness as its meaty counterparts is roasting the vegetables. A little bit of oven imbued caramelization is all it takes. It is also important to make a big batch. Eight liters of stock takes just as long to make as one, so go big!

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Take:
24 stalks of celery (about 2 stalks)
24 medium carrots 
24 small onions, skin on
2 heads of garlic, skin on
and chop into roughly equally sized chunks. Toss in a large bowl with
1/4 cup of olive oil
Salt
Fresh ground pepper
Spread the vegetables on two 3/4 sheet pans and roast in the oven for 20 minutes. Stir and swap the sheet pans and roast for approximately another 20 minutes. The vegetables will be fragrant and brown at the edges, and the onion and garlic skins crispy when they are ready. Transfer the vegetables from the pans to a large stock pot one at a time. Deglaze the sheet pans with some:
Boiling water
And scrape the brown bits from the pan into the stock pot and add:
6 bay leaves
48 peppercorns (or therabouts)
A bunch of parsley or a half cup of dry parsely 
Boiling water to cover
And bring to a simmer (never a boil!) for one hour. Decant the pot through a sturdy strainer into a large bowl.  Mash the vegetables in the strainer to get as much richness into the stock as possible. Decant the stock from the bowl into liter mason jars through a fine mesh strainer to remove any grit. Use immediately or let them cool and you can store the jars in the fridge for up to a month. The jars also make it easy to decant into a one liter freezer bag for long storage!

We also keep a stock bag in the freezer with the trimmings from our day to day cooking and add them to the pot when we make stock. Waste not, want not!