French onion soup the way you imagine it should be

My 'Onion Scale'

Having spent 6 months making French Onion Soup on a weekly basis during my ski season in Val d'Isere, I am fairly confident that I make a mean rendition of it. Now I know many of you out there make a 'mean' onion soup, but unfortunately I have the job today of telling you that you probably don't.

This is not me being an arse-hole, there will be no doubt in your mind when that is the case, its simply the truth. I have sampled many many attempts from Alpine restaurants and from friends alike, some are good, some are ok and some are shocking.... None have been as good as mine. This is not hubris, but fact.

This soup is a classic, and its a classic because its good. Its good because its simple, but because its so simple people get bored. When people get bored they start to meddle and unfortunately when people start to meddle things go off track. I should know... I have done more than my fair share of meddling over the years!

So the secret, the key, the holy elixir of onion soup greatness is...... the onions! Kicking yourself now for not getting that aren't you! Some people say that the secret lies in the stock that is used, and I would agree that a really well made and flavoursome stock is important, but its not the secret to the dish. The flavour that you know and love is not that of the stock, otherwise you would be ordering a beef consommé and not the onion soup... like I said the secret is in the onions and I'm going to show you what that secret looks like. Literally.

No additives, no preservatives, no balsamic, no sugar, no gravy browning... JUST ONIONS and patience

Before I move on I need to make something clear... I am not going to give you a recipe. Instead I am going to give you something far more dangerous than that hand crafted Japanese Santoku you are wielding, I am going to give you an idea. The idea I want to bestow upon you is the bare-bones of a French onion soup, its the DNA profile that makes it what it is, but it is not the worlds most refined and elaborate version. I am willing to bet that if you try this, do not meddle, and take care and time to do it properly you will be surprised and delighted and maybe even astounded at a soup that is probably better than most you have tried before.

So you will need, white onions, garlic, beef stock as well as some butter/oil and seasoning. Simples. All I will say regarding the quantity of onions you will need is that, you will require triple the amount of onions you think you will before you slice them, and double the amount you have after you have sliced them! Confused? Don't be, it will become very clear when you try it. For now try maybe 5 large onions. Also many recipes use balsamic vinegar, sugar, tomato paste and many other things. I don't necessarily disagree with using these, just not today please, trust me on this. We are going to get a pure flavour, you may tinkle with the recipe afterwards but this once do it my way, see what you would like to add then make it again. Things like sugar and balsamic will make you think your onions are at the right stage when they are not.

Take a look at this great bloggers onion soup he was doing well until he added the balsamic vinegar. Look at the colour of the onions, they have started to caramelise but haven't had a chance to develop serious flavour and the balsamic makes them look like they have. (I do love a little balsamic in my soup, the acid cuts the sweetness nicely, but I add it to onions that have been taken to the limit). His post was the inspiration behind this blog... bookmark his site, it makes for good reading!

The key to developing 'that' flavour is looooong slow controlled cooking. This soup is a labour of love, no answering the phone, now watching your favourite soap, no nothing other than the soup.

So lets do it.

You will melt some fat, a touch of oil and a wedge of butter is my choice , add the onions and some salt and sweat in a covered pan for 5-10mins to soften and start to draw some moisture out of the onions. Once softened remove the lid and allow moisture to start evaporating.

You will soon notice that the huge amount of onions you thought you had is no more as they sweat down and reduce hugely in size. It will get worse... or is that better?  Keep stirring and maintain a medium to high heat at this stage until the moisture in the pan from the sweating stage has evaporated then lower it.

After 20 minutes the onions will start to caramelise. This does not mean they brown due to the heat searing the onion, it means as the water in the onion is being removed the natural sugars are concentrating and very slowly caramelising. You may add a whole clove of garlic, un-chopped and un-crushed.... whole.

Make sure you stir the onions every 2-3 mins. As the volume of onions reduces try and make sure the entire base of the pan is always covered in onions. This will speed up channelisation process a little and make for a more uniform colouration and flavour.

Monitor the heat carefully and be vigilant, it only takes a few seconds for the onions to catch and burn turning your soon to be soup acrid. If this happens try and spoon off the onions from the top leaving the burnt ones behind... and start again in a clean pan, using fresh onions if you dont have enough part cooked ones.

Keep going.... be brave, but be careful!

Finally, an hour later we are there! Look at those onions, fudge-like, gooey, deliciously sweet. Just some of the ways that I can think of to describe them. From all those onions we now have maybe two heaped tablespoons of onions... enough for 2 bowls of soup... and if you are me, you will eat them both yourself.

So to finish add you beef stock and simmer very very gently for a couple of minutes, season to taste et voila! You could add a large croûton cut from a baguette, topped with a heart stopping amount of good Gruyère, I'd go for Beaufort personally, but being a very very poor student I couldn't afford the bread let alone the 'King of the Gruyères”... truth be told I couldn't afford the onions, but that's the kind of guy I am, getting into debt to make sure you guys have good soup!

To recap... don't mess with this idea, you only have to do it like this one time so you understand the process and the flavour it develops. You will then understand the heart and soul of this soup and are then free to go wild and add some wine, tomato paste, lychees whatever! Your onions will be the same but you will build a greater depth of flavour around them, hell you may go completely crazy and even add some flour to thicken it slightly... but not this time!

Let me know your opinions in the comments below... I wont bite I promise... oh yeah... HAVE FUN!

Dylan

My Ultimate Focaccia Recipe

(Beautiful, expensive and exclusive Portofino, Italy)

So having failed so massively at making the little bread rolls in my exam last week at Tante Marie, I decided today to get back on the bread wagon and make one of my favourites breads – The Focaccia.

Garlic and herb Focaccia

Focaccia is as popular as it is badly made, and believe me I have had some badly made ones!  Whilst working on-board large motor-yachts I tried numerous recipes for this fabulous bread, non of which came close to encapsulating the goodness of the version found in a tiny little bakery in the heart of Portofino, Italy. This tiny little bakery that has been going for over 100yrs, serves up what can only be described as the best Focaccia in the world* and may also rate as being some of the most expensive. One day I had to run ashore to pick up some provisions and was asked by the chef to stop by this particular bakery and pick up a few varieties for the guests, and was warned that the old women that serves in there will try and feed me till I burst with various bits of baked goodness... she didn't disappoint. I bought four varieties, each portion being the size of a dinner plate... price... 65 euros! That's some expensive water, flour and oil let me tell ya! But oh yeah it was definitely worth it!

After this experience my focaccia making stepped up a gear trying to recreate that perfect texture and flavour I had experienced, the crispness of the herb variety, or the goey stickiness that came with the onion topped version. After many an hour trawling the internet I stumbled across a recipe that looked as if it may posses the correct texture, and that has to be half the battle right?? So the next day I set about making it. Not bad.. I made it again a few days later tweaking it a little... better... and so on and so forth until I reached this my recipe. I would love to mention the place I first found the base recipe as it was the blueprint for this, just with a little tweak here and there, but I cant for the life of me remember... so if you recognise this being close to your recipe, let me know who you are so I can thank you and attribute it to you!

Ok, enough with the waffle. Lets get baking!

Dylan' Perfect Focaccia

(makes two breads, or if you have a very large oven and baking tray.. one party size!)

For the Poolish:

340g White bread flour

350g Water at room temp

½ tsp Dried yeast. 

(is fine to use fresh yeast if you have it. If using dried just whisk it with the water to dissolve and reactivate it)

To finish the dough:

All the above poolish

330g White bread flour

90ml Olive oil

2 tsp salt plus some for sprinkling

170g lukewarm water

1½ tsp Dried yeast 

1. Night before making bread mix all poolish ingredients together with a wooden spoon and stir in the same direction 100 times to help develop the gluten (crucial), cover and leave somewhere cool or in the fridge overnight. This should be like a thick sticky paste so don't worry!
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Add remaining ingredients and again mix 50 times with a wooden spoon ensuring everything is incorporated. It is still going to be a sticky mess... just go with it. I wouldn't lie to you.. would I?
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Remove dough from bowl and place in a greased basin, gently spread the dough into a rough rectangle and fold it into three. Oiling your hands a little will help. Cover and leave to prove for an hour or until doubled in size in a warm place. I used an oiled plastic basin to pour the dough into, you could the remainder on a greased work surface or baking tray.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. Because the dough is so 'loose' it should have spread as it has risen and nearly filled the base of the basin, repeat the folding, cover and prove again for an hour or until doubled in size... repeat one more time after this.  The folding helps distribute the various size bubbles that are forming in the dough and is crucial for a good final texture.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. Use a knife and try and cut the dough in two, it wont be easy but just get stuck in! Grease two trays with olive oil, or use a teflon baking sheet as I have, and place half the dough on each. Cover with oil (see end of post) and gently push your finger tips into the dough and ease it towards the edges of the tray. Don't worry if it doesn't fill the tray as it soon will. Leave to rest again covered in clingfilm until doubled in size.  Preheat the oven to 250c and place a baking sheet you won't be using for the bread in the bottom of the oven.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
6. The dough should now fill or nearly fill the tray. Carefully add more oil to the top of the dough and gently press it into the dough. Any any large bubbles that appear should be gently popped. The idea is to keep most of the gas in the dough so treat her gently. Rest for 15mins then place in a 250c oven, immediately turning down to 220c.  Just before shutting the door, toss a 1/4 cup of water or a few ice-cubes onto the tray you previously placed in the bottom of the oven, shut the door quickly to trap the steam.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
7. Vent the steam from the oven after 8-10mins and turn the tray around and bake for another 8-12mins until cooked through and nicely browned.
   
   
   
8. Let cool on a wire rack or the base will go soggy, brush with a little oil then sprinkle with sea salt! Don't touch it for at least 20mins to allow excess moisture to evaporate from the dough.... enjoy!

So that's basically that. A few things, I made a flavoured oil with rosemary, thyme and garlic heated cooked gently in good extra virgin olive oil for 6-7mins and then cooled. You don't have to do this as it tastes great with just the olive oil... I would recommend it though. 150-200ml should be about right, save leftovers to make salad dressing with... no measurements for the herbs as I didn't take note, just go with what feels right, taste and add more if necessary!

The second focaccia was a onion topped version, very authentic and my favourite! Finely slice an onion or two or three and place in a bowl with some salt and a little sugar. Mix well and taste a bit of onion, it should taste a little too salty. Leave for 30-60mins and gently squeeze the liquid out of the onions. Taste them again and they should be only a little salty now. Spread over the lightly oiled dough and bake. Sprinkle with a little salt while cooling.

I cooked the bread on a tray, and I placed the tray on a granite chopping board I use in the oven to replicate a real bakers oven.  As you can see it really helps cook the dough from beneath encouraging a browned and crisp base! (read more in my baguette post)

Any questions or comments feel free to ask below and I'll do my best in helping you recreate this AWESOME FOCACCIA!

My baguette post made it onto this weeks YeastSpotting ..... I wonder if this will be deemed worthy to appear next week?  check the site out for some awesome looking bread recipes!

Dylan

*my opinion, and you best believe it!

Week 5 & 6 at Tante Marie

Apologies for the lateness of this post but I was kept busy with preparing for my first practical exam at Tante Marie, which kept me from updating you on the last two weeks events.

Week 5 started with icing the dreaded Celebration Cake with cold fondant, a task that didn't go entirely smoothly but resulted in something which I am happy with knowing my skill level (-10) at these sorts of things.

Celebration Cake - covered in cold fondant

We also made up some Royal Icing and did a little piping practice, something which my perma-shaking hands are never going to cope with too well. Next step for the cake is to start decorating it... and that is where the real “fun” begins allegedly.

 My humble/feeble attempts at piping... this cake is not going to be pretty!

As if that wasn't enough piping, week 5 saw us make a Gâteau au chocolat... which... wait for it... had a delicate design of stars, shells and straight lines piped over and over again across the top :-(   Other dishes included Cabbage gratin, Filets de sole cubat, Warm honey and goats cheese salad, Poulet provençal, Turban d'Agen and a couple of others. The week also contained a couple of demos, a theory class, “The Meat Lecture and “The Herb Lecture”. I intend to post about the about the final two lectures mentioned in the easter break, so tune in then to see what these pics are all about....

A whole Lamb... minus innards.. head, fur... etc...

 

1/4 of a beef!  Hung for 5-6 weeks... get a load of that colouration!

Week 6 was a 4 day week what with half-term on Friday... yeah I said HALF-TERM mofos, Whoop Whooop! The week kicked off with a demo on Monday morning followed swiftly by some of our classes first practical test... the so called “Intermediate Exam” whereby one must cook a three course meal chosen by Tante Marie along with 8 bread rolls shaped into various...erm.... shapes!?!?! The exam is split over two days, a two hour session in the afternoon followed by a 9:30am start the following day, serving starters at 12:00, mains at 12:15 and deserts at 12:30.

On Monday and Tuesday I had to potwash for some of my fellow students doing their exam, before starting mine on Wednesday afternoon. My dishes comprised of Bread rolls, Kitchen garden soup, Garlic and herb crusted rack of lamb, Rosemary potatoes, Cabbage gratin, Carrots vichy and yes you guess it........ a god damn Gâteau au chocolat with all that damn piping!!!!

Anyway, all went OK... not brilliant by far. I was devastated with home my bread rolls came out, they had hardly proved even after nearly an hour over some hot water and when baked were covered in stretch marks and were pasty pale even though I had baked them for longer than required in a desperate attempt to get some colour on them... bloody old school gas ovens!

 From clockwise - Shite, Shite, Shite, Shite, Shite, Shite, Shite and finally...Shite

Of course the piping was not as bad as my first attempt in class the previous week, and although I was quite happy with it, I am fully aware that it would fall short of Mrs A's stringent criteria. The only other problem with the Gâteau was the fact it did not come out of the tine cleanly... again! Despite doing exactly as instructed and taking a solid 5mins to slowly and gently run a palette knife delicately around the edge of the sponge (as it again hadn't shrunk away from the sides as it is allegedly supposed to do, not that anyone else could achieve this... even when it was demo'ed to us!) a good chink was left welded to the oiled cake tin... very very annoyed!

Sooo... Lines not straight and gaps between shells and stars.. on the right side of the third line from the bottom you can see where my shakes really kicked in!!!

Saving graces were how well my lamb was cooked (in my humble opinion), the jus was under reduced as I was faced with the conundrum of serving well rested and hot meat with a under-reduced jus bang on time, or a great jus with cold and dry meat 5mins late. I went with the former option.

The veg dishes were good-ish... the potatoes stuck a little to the pan but were a massive improvement on the “mash with crispy bits” I served up in class when we first cooked them after they welded themselves to the pan. The Cabbage gratin was a revelation as I decided to actually weigh the cabbage I had shredded to ensure I had exactly what was required, beautiful.

The soup came out well... again a lot better than we had made in class mainly due to the fact we followed the recipe and only put 1litre of our carefully crafted veg stock into it... rather than what we did in class and just put ALL the stock... watering the final flavour down by a factor of a million. 
 

Over all I was happy ish, far from faultless and far from what I could achieve. I put myself under the kosh on the second day by remaking my bread rolls.... which I shouldn't have done as they came out even worse... I couldn't believe it! Here's a pic of what I thought was just an OK batch I made at home....

From bottom to top - Not bad, Not bad, Not bad, Not bad, Not bad, Shite, Shite and finally... Shite!

Compared to the two abominations I made in the exam this bread was amazing, despite the cottage loaf blowing its top, and the twist untwisting a little! If I had stayed with my original bread I would have had a nice 30mins to rectify some of the things that weren't great... alas coulda woulda shoulda dont get you very far.

You see, I don't see tests like this as an opportunity to show the teachers what I can do, but as a way of challenging myself to see what I can do. I know a lot of people wont either understand or agree with this, but that's the way it is for me. Yes I would like to get a great final mark for my time spent at Tante Marie, but I feel its more important for me to leave here with a greater idea of what I am, and what I am not capable of doing. I have a feeling that in the real world people are not going to be so interested in whether I got a Pass, Merit or Distinction on this course... but whether I can indeed knock out 500 canapés in the 4hrs before they are needed.

If from time to time you don't push yourself beyond your limits then how can you know where that limit is? And this is what I was thinking when I remade my bread. I didn't go down in flames, yet I didn't shower myself in glory. I guess we will just have to wait a few weeks for the budget lunch exam and see how far beyond my limits I go.....

Dylan