Hot Soup; Easy Grub

I had been meaning to make this for a while, and finally got around to it. So easy, so rich and tasty...

We had a piece of meat that had been purchased on a "Manager's Special" discount, which means it had to be either eaten or frozen within a day. A few days later I saw it, noticed the sticker, saw it had oxidized (turned gray) and that it may have developed a tiny layer of slime (started to turn). Since dinner was already done, I threw it in the freezer.

I mention all this because a week went by, maybe ten days, and I noticed I had three-quarters of a large onion waiting to be used. As vacation had already set in, and the Decemberween trip to Santa Monica coming up soon, I knew that all the groceries would need to be eaten. 

Finally the opportunity presented itself.

I sliced the onion thin, put it into one of my sauce pots with some oil and bit of butter, hit it with some salt, turned the heat on low, and let it go. I came by every fifteen minutes to give it a stir, but really all you want to do is slowly caramelize the onion.

I was making French Onion Soup.

Typically, all you do is caramelize onion and add beef stock, but water will do just fine if you have no stock. On this day, I had no stock, but we did have that funky beef from earlier. I pulled it out of the freezer, used a cleaver to cut it into thirds while still frozen, and started boiling it to make broth.

Note: broth is made with meat, while stock is made with bones. I'm not sure what the distinction between veg broth and veg stock is...

After the broth had been going for a while, and the onions were nicely caramelized, I added the broth to the onions, let it simmer for a while, then started to add the real French touch: the bread and cheese.

The French like to add bread to the top of the pot, cover that bread with cheese, and broil the whole deal until the cheese is melted and bubbly.

Here's a picture before it went into the broiler:

Here it is five to seven minutes later:

It was so rich and delicious.

Onions, water (or broth/stock), and time. Cheese and bread optional. So easy and so tasty.

For a special French secret twist try this: As the soup finishes in the broiler, take one egg yolk and beat it with one or two teaspoons of dry sherry in a bowl. Once the soup comes out and the cheese and bread are all crusty, break open some space in the middle and pour in the yolk mixture. Stir gently. When it's cool enough to eat, it will be even more rich and awesome, and the yolk will be pasteurized, so nothing to worry about there. Oh...the French...

Hot Soup!