Serves: ~4
Cost: ~€2
Preparation time: ~50 minutes
Calories: ~350 calories per serving
[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #0B0B61;”]Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good weekend. Today was supposed to be a post about “the joys of England”. I had something all lined up and ready in my head. I’d started making the first part, and the second part I was going to make on Sunday morning. It was going to be awesome, and oh, so delicious. Unfortunately, when I took a look at the first part which had been “in the making” so to speak it hadn’t quite turned out as expected (read: not even close to being what it actually should have been!”). I’ll have to save that post for another day instead. To be honest, it was a rather ambitious idea, but I shan’t dwell on failures (besides, I don’t know for sure it’s failed yet… I need to wait a bit longer and see!).
I have a wonderful long list of English things I just can’t wait to cook up, many of which I’m going to be working on in the week and next weekend – now I just need to find the time to make them all. Speaking of time, I was thinking of changing my posting schedule. Currently I try to post once every three days, but thought maybe I’d switch to a Sunday/Wednesday posting schedule. I think it’s the best idea – I’ll still end up making two posts a week (except for the occasional week when there are three) but it will free up a bit of extra time for me.
Anyway – on to today’s recipe! I’ve seen at least two, maybe three posts for onion soup around the blogs I follow recently. They’ve all been reminding me that I haven’t made the stuff in, literally, years. I think the last time I did was about 6 years ago. A lot of the recipes I saw use red wine; some suggested cognac, but none of them seemed to use any port which I’ve always thought added a beautiful, delicate background sweetness to the dish.
When making this, please bear in mind that the stock makes a huge difference to the final flavour. I’d recommend a good home-made stock – either vegetable or beef; it just won’t be the same if you use instant stock, so plan ahead! Enjoy, everyone, and have a great week!
French Onion Soup with Port
[learn_more caption=”Video Recipe”]
[/learn_more]Ingredients
- 2 litres of good Stock
- 50g Butter
- 4 tbsps Olive Oil
- 7 Onions
- 4 cloves of Garlic
- 100ml Red Wine
- 100ml Port
- 2 tbsps Plain Flour
- 3 tsps dried Thyme
- 2 tsps Salt
- 2 tsps Pepper
- 4 slices of good Bread
- 100g Cheese – Gruyère, Emmental, Cheddar etc, grated
Instructions
- Start off by mincing the garlic, and then peel and slice the onions finely. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a large pan and add the olive oil as well.
- When the butter has melted, add the onions, garlic and the thyme. Sauté the onions in the butter and oil and lower the heat slightly. Continue cooking the onions down, stirring regularly, until they have significantly reduced in volume.
- When the onions have cooked down add the flour to the onions and stir well to completely mix the onions with the flour. Add the stock, salt and pepper and then stir. Pour in the red wine and then bring almost to the boil, before lowering the temperature, covering, and simmering lightly for about 20 minutes to allow the flavours to infuse through the stock.
- After the soup has simmered for some time remove the lid and pour in the port and then stir. Remove the soup from the heat and allow to stand for a couple of minutes while you toast one side of the bread.
- Serve the soup into bowls, place the bread toasted side down into the soup and sprinkle liberally with the grated cheese before placing under the grill / broiler for a couple of minutes until the cheese has melted. Serve immediately and enjoy!
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