Plain Onion Soup

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Glengarry Fencible
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Plain Onion Soup

Post by Glengarry Fencible » Mon Jan 22, 2007 10:36 pm

The following is fabulous!

From the Officers' Mess Kitchen at
HISTORIC FORT YORK
THE BIRTHPLACE OF TORONTO

Plain Onion Soup

Cookbook
Margaret Dods, The Cook and Housewife's Manual, (Edinburgh: Simpkin & Marshall, edition, 1833), Pages 124-125, number 69.

Original Recipe
Chop a dozen large onions singly, and stew them in a stew pan with butter, stir them about with a wooden spoon; let them cook very gradually and not get brown. Put to this some very strong stock-broth, well-seasoned; add pepper, cayenne, and salt, and if nicer cooking is wanted, strain the soup, and put to it a pint of boiling cream.

Modern Equivalent
12 large onions, coarsely chopped 12
250 ml butter 1 cup
1 L beef or veal broth, well-seasoned 4 cups
5 ml black pepper 1 tsp
2.5 ml cayenne pepper 1/4 tsp
5 ml salt 1/2 tsp
500 ml rich cream, boiling (optional) 2 cups

Version # 1: Melt butter in a large stew pan. Add onions and stew slowly, until soft, but not browned, about 20 minutes. Add pepper, cayenne and salt. Add broth and allow to heat through. Serve with bread.

Version # 2: Follow the instructions for version 1, but bring broth to a boil to extract as much flavour as possible from the onions. Strain the onions out of the broth, and discard the onions. Add boiling cream to strained broth. Serve with thin pieces of white bread.

Notes: Spices depend upon the quality of broth. Version # 2 is nice if the onions are left in.
There are two onion soups in this one recipe. The first one is merely a combination of stewed onions and, seasoning and broth. The second one is a delicately flavoured cream soup.
Name may say plain, but flavour is most delicious.

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pud
Official historian
Posts: 370
Joined: Fri Sep 01, 2006 11:48 pm
Location: Upper Canada

Fab Recipes

Post by pud » Mon Jan 22, 2007 10:56 pm

Bill,

Geez, if you keep up this pace I'm gonna ask you to cook me an entire meal!

:lol:

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