May Cause Tears
The first time I tried French Onion Soup was in a little restaurant in Jasper, Alberta. I hated it with a passion. It was potent and salty and had a huge chunk of bread floating in it. It was basically the antithesis of anything I'd ever want to it. I wrote it off and never tried it again.
Again inspired by a Good Eats episode, I decided to make French onion soup myself and see if it was any better than my previous experience. Shannon absolutely loves French onion soup, so if nothing else it wouldn't go to waste. I was kind of surprised at how easy it was to make, while being completely different from any soup I've ever made before. The initial prep work gave me a good cry, but caramelizing that many onions at once was really easy. Leave them alone to burn for an hour; it doesn't get much simpler than that.
I have to say that the soup was better than I remember it, but only until I ran out of cheese bread topping. After that, it was pretty much like eating a bowl of onions. Shannon said it was on par with the best she's ever had, but I pay her to say things like that. She said it was sweeter than most, perhaps due to the excessive caramelizing or just in comparison to whatever scary things they make it out of in a restaurant. I've always thought this soup had a reputation of being an artery clogging dish that is guaranteed to make you fat, but aside from a slice of cheese and oversized crouton, I'm not sure where the apparent health risk is coming from.
The best part about this dinner is that I found a use for my tiny little sauce pans that I haven't used since the Pork Tenderloin in Rhubarb Sauce recipe. Sure, little crocks would've been better, but my kitchen is slowly dwindling as we prepare for the move and I have to work with what I've got.
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The recipe isn’t really that complicated, it’s just time consuming. Packet style is basically a bunch of flavored salt :)
I used a carton of low-sodium beef broth. I generally prefer this to the canned stuff, but I am guilty of using boullion cubes on occasion when it comes to chicken broth. It’s that whole “cup of noodle” warming feel from childhood, I suppose.
It really only makes 4 servings! They reduce so much in the cooking process that it certainly doesn’t seem like a full onion. It was actually a pretty satisfying dinner for a stand alone soup.
uhhhmmm… you will know when we want you to know. we control the horizontal and the vertical. duh.
Ah. You are the alpha and the omega. I see how y’are.
We made French onion soup again tonight in class. It was much better this time, though my partner burned his two batches of croutons, so another teammate made them. We used 2 POUNDS of onion to make four servings, so I rescind my comment about the mass amount of onions you used.
Thank you for adding the little notifier sidebar. =D
I imagine weight rather than general descript size is a much better way of going about it. It’s amazing how much they cook down to nothing so quickly!
Yey for oniony goodness, concentrated into the bottom of the crock! I’m getting used to weighing all our ingredients. It makes me want to bring in my digital scale so I don’t have to fuss with the spring scales, though.
I have a very tiny spring scale I use very rarely. The weight thing is just so uncommon for recipes I’m accustomed to :o
I don’t think it’s necessary for a lot of savory cooking, especially for cooking at home. It makes more sense when cooking mass quantities because it makes it’s harder to judge quantities by look and feel alone.
Especially once you’re familiar with cooking at home. It’s very easy to feel comfortable cooking when you’ve got a good idea of how much a teaspoon, tablespoon and cup is, or an ounce/serving of whatever. I think most people do it in comparison to something, like a 4 ounce serving of meat is the size of your palm etc.
I can eyeball meat servings pretty well. It’s especially helpful when buying meat from a butcher.
Those conversions were a part of Monday’s quiz. I think I did all right with it, but Chef hasn’t mentioned it to us yet, and I don’t know if he will. =P
3 teaspoons to a tablespoon, 4 tablespoons to a quarter cup, 4 quarter cups to a cup, 4 cups to a liter, 4 liters to a gallon. Is that all right?
Eyeballing meat is one of my favorite passtimes.
That is all right! Very good.
Let’s see … how many tablespoons to an ounce? How many ounces in 2/3 cup? How many ounces in a gallon? How many cups in a quart? If I need a 1/2-ounce of wine in my beurre blanc, how can I measure that by volume (working scenario that happened this past Wednesday).
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