Onion soup, worth all those tears

If someone would have told me a few years ago that one day I will be cooking, let alone eating onion soup, I would laugh them out. I literally despised anything with onion or garlic, because of the bitter taste they had…yukyukyuk. But somehow, little by little I started to use onion and garlic in the dishes I make (maybe one of the reasons is that J is a huge fan of them) and guess what, I have started to like them. Even that much that I prepared onion soup.

Well, it was J birthday as well and he deserved a treat and onion soup was something he would like, that’s for sure. Although I must say, somewhere between slicing the onions when I literally cried because it was so painful for my eyes, I already thought the hell with that, Im going to make a creamy potato soup. But Im a strong girl. I got over it, chopped all the onions and prepared the soup. Still, if anyone can tell me how to chop the onions and not cry at the same time, I would be very grateful.

Now, back to the soup. You’ll get enough for 5-6 servings:

700 g onions, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
50 g butter
2 cloves garlic, crushed
½ tbsp sugar
1.2 litres beef stock
275 ml dry white wine
salt, black pepper and thyme (optional)

# First of all do all the chopping. As said, it was painful, at least for my eyes, but…I did not know any other way. And the good thing is that after that it goes much easier!

# Place the saucepan on a high heat and melt the oil together with butter. When this is very hot, add the onions, crushed garlic and sugar, and keep turning them at high heat for about 5-6 minutes. 

# Reduce the heat to its lowest and leave the onions to carry on cooking for about 45 minutes, by which the onions have softened.

# Pour in the stock and white wine, season with salt and pepper (and thyme, if you like the taste) and stir well. As soon as it all comes up to simmering point, turn down the heat to its lowest again and leave it cook uncovered for about 1 hour.

While soup is simmering, make the croutons. You’ll need:

25 cm long baguette, cut into cubes

1 tbsp olive oil

1-2 garlic glove, crushed

# Drizzle the olive oil on to a baking-sheet, add crushed garlic and spread the oil and garlic all over the baking sheet.

# Place the bread slices on top of the oil, turn them over so that each cube gets lightly coated with the oil.

# Bake at 180 degrees C until crunchy (for about 20-25 minutes).

All this can be done in advance - both croutons and soup will stay covered in a fridge for at least 2 days. Keep in mind though that when you’re ready to serve the soup, bring it back up to simmering point and taste to check for seasoning.

The traditional way of serving onion soup is something like that - place hot soup into oven-proof dishes, top with croutons and grated cheese and place the dishes in the hot oven until cheese is bubbling. I don’t have oven-proof soup bowls, so I just topped the soup with croutuns and sprinkled with some grated cheese. The soup was very hot, so the cheese started melting immediately anyway.

J was happy and surprised. And even I enjoyhed those slowly cooked, caramelised onions that turned mellow and sweet…lovely dish, if only it didn’t take so much time to prepare…and of course, if only it wasn’t so painful for my eyes.

Rice noodles with vegetables

At the weekends we often go to L’Archiduc for some jazz and after that to Hong Kong Delight for some Chinese food. It is our favourite Chinese place, nothing fancy, but the food is great. Its plastic chairs and the fact that someone often tries to get their way to the kitchen (between the tables) with huge sacs of celery stalks or onions only adds the authentic atmoshpere. So, we try to keep up the tradition and find our way there every weekend. However, once we were either too tired or too lazy to go out, so I tried to make something chinese-food-like from the ingredients I had home.

200 g rice noodles

1 bell pepper

1 carrot

a handful of bean sprouts

1 garlic glove

4-5 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp oyster sauce

olive oil and water

100 g chicken filled, boiled in chicken broth  

 

# Julienne bell pepper and carrot, set aside.

# Heat oil in a wok pan or a saucepan and add crushed garlic, fry for a few minutes to bring out the flavour.

# Place carrot and bell pepper to the saucepan and continue to fry at a lower heat. In case you sense that the vegetables will start to burn, add some water (not oil). Stir-fry the vegetables as long as they are tender (or until still a bit crispy - whatever you like most).

# Add chopped chicken fillet together with oyster sauce and continue to stir fry for another few minutes. Remove from heat.

# Prepare rice noodles (soak them in hot salty water for about 3-5 minutes, drain) and pour over the vegetables-chicken mix.

# Add soy sauce and bean sprouts, give it a good toss and serve immediately. You might want to sprinkle it with some toasted sesame seeds as well.

You’ll get two portions from this amount, in case you were wondering.

Lemon mousse

Sometimes I get fed up with all the cakes and pies and would like something lighter for dessert. Some kind of mousse for example. I only had a lemon in my fridge, no other fruits or berries, so I decided to go for a light lemon mousse. It turned out pretty well, even J was impressed. And this guy is not very easy to impress.

I only made 2 glasses, but the next time would double the ingredients and do 4 glasses, so that I would have a dessert for the next evening as well. Still, be careful not to prepare too much of it, cause mousses only stay fresh for a couple of days. And you can’t freeze them.

2 large eggs

2 tbsp sugar

25 ml lemon juice

1 tsp grated lemon rind

2 sheets gelatin (about 2 tsp gelatin powder)

50 ml hot water

50 ml whipping cream

# Separate the eggs.

# Place egg yolks, lemon rind and juice in a saucepan. Simmer at low heat for about 3 minutes, stirring constantly until sauce is thickened.

# Whip egg whites with sugar until stiff, also whip cream with the rest of the sugar until stiff.

# Soften gelatin sheets in cold water for a few minutes. Remove excess water and place sheets to a dry bowl, pour over with 50 ml hot water. Stir, until the sheets have melted.

# Add gelatin into the egg yolk’s mixture, stir well. Gently fold whipped cream, then stiff egg whites into the lemon & egg mixture.

# Pour into two individual glasses, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until set, for about 6-7 hours.

Next time I might do the final folding in a jar rather than a bowl so that it would be easier to pour the mousse into separate glasses.

It can be served with whipping cream or some fruits. J tried it with some strawberry jam - and according to him and the look on his face while he was eating it, it was something very delicious. I ate it just as it was - I think its lightly acidulous taste was quite pleasant and it didn’t call for any extras.

By the way, did you know that most commercial gelatin is made of pig’s skin? Luckily it doesn’t have any effect on the flavour, so…do try this recipe, its good, honestly!

Banana bread

Banana and bread are the two words which I have never used together, side by side. Before I tried this recipe of course. I mean, banana bread? Are you serious? To me - and maybe it is more of an Estonian thing - banana is something sweet and bread is something salty. So what’s next, broccoli sponge cake?

Anyway, after I did some research I found out that banana bread is apparently a completely normal dish, nothing unusual. I found a lot of recipes and decided to give it a try. After all, C was coming over to see some Desperate Housewives and I still owed her a birthday cake. Risky business of course, to offer a cake which you have not made before (and I did not have a back-up dessert), but…sometimes you have to live life on the edge. Anyhow. Here’s what you need for one 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf:

1 3/4 cups (245 grams) flour

1/4 cup (30 grams) unsweetened cocoa powder

1 cup (200 grams) granulated white sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup (85 grams) white chocolate, grated or processed

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

3 ripe bananas, mashed well

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

# Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside. You might think that there is too much of this dry stuff - but don’t worry, it is just right amount. Just make sure that you use a large bowl which would fit both the dry and the wet ingredients (you know, eventually you have to fold everything together).

# Combine mashed bananas, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla in another bowl.

# With a rubber spatula or wooden spoon fold the wet ingredients (banana mixture) into the dry ingredients until just combined. Also add the chocolate.

# Scrape batter into prepared pan and at 180 degrees C until the bread has risen and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 60 to 70 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

I must say, I was impressed - it was rich, moist and tasty. So this is what a banana bread tastes like. Yum! When you’ll have leftovers, heat them in a microvawe oven before serving, to bring out the flavours - it really tastes better when warm.

Creamy soup with potato chunks - a compromise

Since Christmas, when we got a food processor, I have prepared many different creamy soups. I very much like their rich and creamy flavour and it is so easy to make them - just cook the vegetables until tender in broth, purée and serve. You can finish the soup by adding cream, milk or cream cheese, to make it even more rich and moist. But you can actually prepare a silky smooth soup using only water, especially if you have a blender (not a food processor) at your disposal.

So, anyhow, I am a fan of creamy soups, and J is not that much. He prefers a soup with chunks. So I tried to prepare a compromise solution, something like this creamy broccoli soup was. I bet there is an easier way of doing this kind of soup cause I felt like it was weird to cook vegetables differently in two saucepans…but I did not know what else to do…so in case you have any ideas how to prepare a chunky-creamy soup in a more simple manner, let me know. In the meantime, I will tell you how it is possible to prepare two bowls of soup from the following ingredients:

300 g broccoli stalks (you might want to use the broccoli florets to prepare this salad)

2 potatoes

1-2 garlic gloves

chicken broth

4 slices of bacon

white pepper, salt, chili powder

50-100 ml milk

some butter

 

# First of all, wash and peel the potatoes, also wash broccoli stalks and chop everything.

# In a saucepan, melt butter and sauté crushed garlic for a few minutes. Butter adds richness which I like more than the fruity note olive oil provides (but you are welcome to sauté garlic in oil as well).

# After a few minutes of sautéing, place chopped broccoli stalks over the garlic and cover barely with chicken broth.

# At the same time place potato chunks into another saucepan, also cover barely with chicken broth. Boil both vegetables for about 15 minutes and remove from heat.

# Drain potatoes - don’t through away the broth, just pour it in the same saucepan with broccoli. Set potatoes aside until you purée broccoli stalks (together with all the broth).

# When nice and smooth, place potatoes into the soup, add milk and season with white pepper, salt and some chili powder, if you like spicy soups. Stir.

Keep in mind that most cream soups are best when the flavour of the vegetable isn’t blurred by too many ingredients, but at the same time you should still add just enough salt and pepper as it is said that they bring out the somewhat muted vegetable flavors.

So, back to the soup - once you have joined potatoes with the puree, seasoned and stirred everything, then the soup is almost ready. It can wait, covered, until you chop, fry and drain the bacon slices. When serving, top the soup with bacon and grated cheese. Very tasty, J was impressed