Know your onions – Taste Scene

As a child, I wasn’t an especially picky eater, although I had my moments.

I do recall having a particular issue with onions, once upon a time. To a younger me’s eyes sliced onions were slimy, suspicious things and I often imagined I could see them burrowing through the mince stew or wriggling in the vegetable soup, like earthworms on an unwholesome mission. Not to put too fine a point on things, but I hated them with a passion usually reserved for the person who killed your dog.

“I can’t eat this,” I remember eight-year-old me announcing to my grandmother one Sunday afternoon after she’d just served up a bowl of beef stew.

“How?” she asked. She was Scottish, my grandmother and as such, usually said, ‘how’ instead of ‘why’. Don’t ask me why (or how) this is, I don’t know. It’s a Scottish thing.

“How?” she asked again.

“’Cause there’s onions in it. I don’t like onions.”

“Whit’s no tae like aboot onions, son?”

“I don’t like them,” I reaffirmed. “They look like worms.”

Granny had been standing during this brief conversation, having not yet placed her own bowl of stew on the table. She might have said, “Away oota that,” or, as she more commonly suggested, never mincing her words, “Yer bum’s oot the windae.” I can’t remember. But I do remember that she pulled a chair out from the table and sat down beside me. She looked at me intently and said in all seriousness, “Onions areny worms, son.”

The veil was lifted!

This Damascene moment was the beginning of the end for my pickiness. Once we had established that onions were, in fact, not worms and rice grains were not maggots (you can see the imaginary pattern which had been developing), things were on the up and up for me, gastronomically speaking.

These days, I use this onion analogy for my own little humans, when some element of a dish or another is frowned upon for similarly fanciful reasons. I don’t know if it works or not but I like it all the same. Also, I don’t say, “Yer bum’s oot the windae,” half as much as I should.

I don’t ever recall my grandmother making French onion soup although I think she’d have liked it, Auld Alliance or no. It has a deep, satisfying flavour that I think she would have loved. In saying that, she’d probably have topped it up with a dollop or two of HP Sauce!

This is one of those dishes that’s only possible when you’re in the form for cooking. You can’t rush the onions and depending on amount and thickness, they could take as long as an hour to complete – so long as you don’t lose your nerve. The onions for the soup in the pictures took 45 minutes.

Also, if you can’t get gruyere for the crouton(s), don’t worry. Cheddar will do at a pinch.

Also, if you’re using stock cubes or stock pots, it’s a good idea to jizz these up before using.

Make the stock by melting the stock pots or cubes in the one and a half litres of water and bring it to the barest simmer. Add two bay leaves, a couple of sprigs of thyme and rosemary, a few peppercorns, a carrot, a onion (halved) and a few cloves of garlic which you have lightly bashed. Let that stock rip along soaking up the extra flavours for the time it takes to caramelise the onions. Anyway, here goes…

INGREDIENTS

2 tbsps of butter

1 tbsp of olive oil

about a kilo of onions, finely sliced (yes you will cry)

2 fat cloves of garlic, crushed

1 tsp of sugar

2 heaped tbsps of plain flour

scant glass of dry white wine (about 120ml) or dry cider

1.5 litres of your jizzed up beef stock

dash of Worcestershire sauce

dash of light soy sauce

a couple of sprigs of fresh thyme

salt and freshly ground black pepper

sourdough or baguette slices

another garlic clove

olive oil

lots of cheese

THE PLAN

Start off by melting the butter in a large stock pot with the olive oil. When melted, add the onions and stir them about to coat in the buttery juices. Now, this is where the patience comes in. Pour yourself a glass of wine and get ready to care for your onions.

Over a medium to high heat, cook and stir and cook and stir until the onions are carmelised. This could take half an hour or it could take an hour, depending on thickness and temperature. Basically, you want them caramelised but not burnt so keep an eye, stirring if in doubt and if they’re starting to catch on the bottom, give them a small dash of water to deglaze. I had to deglaze this way twice for my soup.

When fully caramelised and lovely, add the sugar and stir through for a minute.

Then add the garlic and give it another minute.

Add the plain flour and stir everything up for another minute or so and then add the white wine to fully deglaze the pan. As the wine sizzles, scrap away at the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon.

After another minute, strain in the highly flavoured stock along with the Worcestershire, soy and another sprig of thyme or two. Bring to a simmer and let it bubble away for about 15 minutes.

After that, remove the sprigs of thyme and taste test, adding a bombardment of black pepper and possibly a pinch of salt.

Take your slices of bread and toast under the grill, both sides until golden (if they’re thin enough it goes without saying that they can go in the toaster). Then lightly rub each one with a garlic clove and drizzle over some olive oil. Top each slice with lots of grated cheese and after you’ve ladled the soup into bowls, place the cheesy croûton on top of soup and place the bowls under the grill for a few minutes until the cheese is bubbling.

Add another few thymes leaves and a grinding of black pepper and that’s it.

Deep and warming and rich, this is the stuff of wintry dreams.