French Onion Soup

              French onion soup is lots of caramelized onion slices floating in a garlicy brown broth served with garlic bread roll. Its soup for soul.. simple with minimal spices. A meal in itself served with toasted garlic bread.

                       My parents are both amazing cooks. Both love to experiment with food. Mom will read books and watch cookery shows, modify the recipes and make them. But dad will cook the way he wants at that point of time. He wont be able to re create any of his recipe. These recipes are “ONE SHOT” Cos what he felt like at that point of time and what ingredients he had then, he used them in the amounts, he felt appropriate. This cooking style of his has enabled us to enjoy lots of amazing recipes in unique combinations. But only once….

                        I also cook like dad many times, Don’t preplan what goes in the dish, Start cooking and adding ingredients, tasting the food and adding what is available at that time. So even I land up making “ONE SHOT”. But Blogging has changed the way I cook. . It has actually helped me a lot. Now I do have recipes for the food experiments gone right. As I have to blog about the recipe, I get my measuring spoons & cups and write down all the ingredients and the method.

 

                 I am sure many of us cook food andaze se.. and manage to sometimes make something special outta something regular.. And as time passes by, we forget the exact recipe.. Please do note down recipes of those special somethings.

           Abhi enjoyed loads of French onion soup in Israel. I heard the description was tempted to try it out. I love Onions & garlic… So I started my hunt for nice recipe. Almost all the recipes called out for beef broth & red wine. I didn’t want to add both in my soup. So I decided to make my own version of the soup.

This post is about the impulsive cooking and jotting down my “ONE SHOT” attempt at making French onion soup. We loved the soup and I am glad I will be able to recreate this simple recipe many more times.

Ingredients:

• 3 medium white onions
• 2 tbsp chopped garlic
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 4 cups water
• 2 maggi magic cubes
• Salt (to taste)
• 1 tsp Pepper

Method:

• I sliced the onions on a slicer to get slices of equal thickness. This helps in uniform browning of onions. Otherwise thin slices get burnt while thicker ones are still not cooked. I also used white onions rather than red ones. White onions are more sweetish and I thought would taste better when caramelized.
• Then I chopped the garlic.
• In a large sauce pan, I added olive oil. Once heated, added chopped garlic and waited till it turned golden brown. Also I kept my garlic bread for baking, so that I have fresh hot bread to go with hot soup.

• Then I added sliced onions. Sprinkled some salt, as this helps the onions to release water and cook faster.
• On the medium flame, I kept on sautéing the onion slices to get uniform coloring and ensure onions don’t get burnt. It took me about 5 mins to get brown caramelized onions.
• Then I added 3 cups of water. It started to smell great with garlic and onion aromas.
• Then thought onions were more for water, so added 1 more cup. Now there were 4 cups of  brown broth. I boiled the soup and the let it simmer for about 20 mins, till the onions are soft.
• I was hunting for pepper grinder, when I happened to catch sight of maggi cubes. I thought maggi cubes could add flavor of stock to water I used earlier. So I crushed 2 cubes in the soup. Added some black pepper powder.

Bread was also ready in the oven. Brushed some butter on the bread and served it with soup. Soup was enough for both of us as a meal. We loved the soup. Hubby said it was close to what he had.