So, I mentioned on
Facebook the other day that I was in the mood for/was going to make French Onion
Soup with the addition of Shiitake Mushrooms.
So, bored on a Sunday morning (yes, I could be working on organizing the
basement or going to church), I thought it would be a good time to do so. And while I was at it, thought I would
document it. And keep track of what I
put in it…GASP…a recipe!!! And PICTURES!!!!
First, we need
proper “cooking on a Sunday morning music”.
In the CD player we have on random play Extreme’s “Pornograffitti”, Elton John’s “Elton John”, Guns and Roses’
“Use Your Illusion 2”, Indigenous’ “Live at Pachyderm Studios” and Jennie
DeVoe’s “Strange Sunshine”. Make sure
this is all played through 750 watts of Yamaha powered Cerwin Vega H-15 (or
the like) to completely annoy your neighbors just like they did to you last Sunday morning with their 7:30 am snowblowing.
Back to the
soup. Here is the ingredient list:
2 tablespoons
vegetable oil
1 tablespoon
margarine
3 medium sized
yellow onions, thinly sliced and roughly chopped
3 garlic cloves,
mashed and minced
8 large dried shiitake
mushrooms, rehydrated in hot water, sliced 1/8” thin*
1 ½ tablespoon dried thyme
1 tablespoon fresh
ground pepper
1 ½ teaspoon rubbed
sage
½ teaspoon ground
cloves
2 large or 4 small
bay leaves
Salt to taste
3 pints (48 fluid
ounces) roasted vegetable stock#
Over medium heat in
a very heavy bottomed pan or pot, add the oil and margarine. Wait until the margarine browns a bit. Add the onions and garlic.
This can take
awhile, but infrequently stir the onions and garlic until medium golden in
color. Add the mushrooms. Cook until onions, garlic (if you can even
distinguish it at this point) and mushrooms until they are a dark golden
brown. This ensures that the color and
flavor of the soup will in part, come from the caramelization and not just from
the stock.
Not yet. We want this:
Add seasonings (yes, we already added the mushrooms, but I didn't feel like taking the time to edit them out with my horrible photo manipulation skills. I cook, remember?)
and
stir for just a moment or two. Add
stock.
Bring to a boil then to a light
simmer. Let this cook for 30-45 minutes
until the liquid barely covers the vegetables.
Play air guitar solo
along with Nuno Bennencourt during “Flight of the Wounded Bumblebee”.
Add 2 cups of water
and reduce to the aforementioned “barely covers the vegetables”.
OK, the soup is
done.
At this point, adjust the
seasonings. I added a tablespoon of salt
at the beginning and think it did an appropriate job.
But now, I’m going
to “Uhmerkicanize” it. Uh, huh…2 ounces
of Bourbon Whiskey. Add it, leave it
out, use Applejack, sherry, red or white wine, port, whatever….I’ve seen ‘em all. But use something decent. Unkle Bart Bathtub Bourbon doesn't cut it but using Eagle Rare 17 Year Old is overkill. Buffalo Trace does well.
Pull out the bay
leaves. Nobody wants to choke on them.
At this point, the soup
is vegan. Ain’t that nice. It was actually the driving force behind the
recipe and creation of the soup. Geez,
now you’ll have to eat vegan food. In my
best Fran Drescher “Oh, ain’t that hoooorrrrribblllllle”.
There are now many
options. You can use toasted bread
rounds, croutons (easiest to eat), bagel chips or an array of bread
products. And for the cheese, I like a
blend of finely shredded Emmentaler Swiss and good Provolone to provide a good
balance of tangy and gooey. Heat the soup to boiling. Place the
bread in individual bowls, ladle the soup over it and then top it all with the
cheese. At this point, hopefully the
soup is hot enough to melt the cheese.
Or you can pop them in the oven.
Or you can take a blow torch to it (to which you must make Beavis and
Butthead voices of “FIRE! FIRE!”). If
you really want to get all fancy pants and impressive you could go the route of
Paul Bocuse’s famous Truffle Soup V.G.E. where the top of the soup cup is
topped and sealed with buttered and egg washed puff pastry and baked until a
dome of glistening crust appears (notice the cup…it is labeled especially for
the soup. I guess you could take a magic
marker to your grandmother's antique Noritake china....)
Me, no cheese or
bread.
You should get about
6 8 ounce servings out of this.
* I usually have dried shiitakes around and you can use fresh ones if you want. I poured about 1 ½ cups of boiling water over them and let them
sit partially covered overnight. The
next day, I squeeze all of the liquid out of them into the bowl in which they
were soaking. I use that soaking liquid
as part of the stock….speaking of which…
# “How much roasted vegetable stock is there on
the planet?”. Well, I make mine. I save all the veggie scraps and freeze
them. Brown them up with a little oil in
a pot, barely cover with water, add some bay, thyme, pepper and garlic and let
it simmer very lightly for two hours refreshing with just enough water to
barely cover. Strain, cool, reserve in
the ‘fridge. If you don’t have veggie
stock, you can use chicken or beef, but make sure it isn’t that GAWDAWFUL
overly salted fakey flavored crap or it will drown out the flavor of the
onions.
So there you have
it. Don't expect this to be a regular column.
