French Onion Soup

So, remember when we made all the veal stock? We had to cook something with is, and John loves French onion soup, so we made French onion soup.

This recipe is from the same cookbook as the veal stock, Staff Meals. There were some weird things about this recipe. I'm going to give you the recipe and then tell you what I would change.


French Onion Soup by Staff Meals

• 2 tbs unsalted butter
• 1 tbs canola or other vegetable oil
• 5 large onions, peeled and sliced lengthwise (about 5 cups)
• 1/2 cup port
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 1/2 cup brandy
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 8 cups veal stock, beef stock or chicken stock
• Coarse salt and fresh ground pepper, to taste
• Crisp croutons and parmesan for garnish

1. Combine the butter and oil in a medium-large stockpot and heat over low heat. Add the onions and cook, uncovered, until brown but not crisp, about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Increase the heat to medium high and cook the onions, uncovered, stirring often, to further brown and caramelize them, 5 to 10 minutes more.
2. Stir in the port, white wine, and brandy and bring to a boil over high heat. Cook, uncovered, until reduced by half, about 5 minutes. Add the sugar and stock and bring to a boil, then lower the heat to a simmer. Cook the soup for 1 hour to allow the flavors to blend. Taste and season with salt and pepper. Serve. Top with croutons and parmesan.

OK, so the recipe didn't work out quite like it was supposed to. The onions didn't brown enough in the time allotted, because there were a lot of them in that pot. We wound up using two pots to brown them and it took us about 60 minutes, not 30. Also, we topped our with French bread and gruyere and broiled them for a minute in individual soup bowls, like they do in restaurants.

The onions had a lot of liquid in them, which I think prevented them from browning properly. My advice would be to brown them for a few minutes in a big skillet so they can cook evenly, just to cook some of the liquid off first. Then, transfer them to a pot to slowly brown some more.

I forgot to take a photo of the finished product, but it looked kind of like this:
And now we have 21 cups of veal stock remaining. What should we make next?

Veal Stock

Hey, remember waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in November, when John got that sauce book and veal bones and the ENORMOUS pot and we said we were going to make stock? Ha, that totally didn't happen in anytime soon. We had holidays and marathons and weddings to go to and restaurants to patron and TV shows to watch and dogs to adopt. We had lives, people. LIVES.

But people kept reminding us that we hadn't made the stock yet, even though we said we would. We felt a little bad about that. John tried to get his mother to make it for us (actually, she volunteered). But I insisted we do it. It's our veal bones, our book, our huge pot. We should do it.

So we did! We didn't use the Saucier's Apprentice recipe. Rather, we used one out of Staff Meals, our first real cookbook. Because we loved Staff Meals so much, we got the Chanterelle cookbook to use as our guestbook at our wedding. I've always wanted to go to Chanterelle, but we missed our opportunity, since they closed last year.

But this is a post about stock, not restaurants. This recipe takes a good 8 hours, minimum. But the good part is that it will sit for 6 hours, undisturbed, simmering away on your stove. At some point in the simmering, take a peek and skim the fat off. If it's like my stock, you'll want to do more than skim. There was a good 2 cups worth of fat on the top of it.

We're going to make french onion soup, also from Staff Meals, later this week to try out the stock. And here's a tip: don't get too fussy with the vegetables. They're going to get strained out, so you're adding them for the flavor, not their looks. And I didn't have a big roasting pan, so I used 3 glass casseroles. They worked fine.

About the time - We started at 10 am and just finished doing the dishes and freezing the stock at 10 pm. Sure, we did other stuff between then - I went to the store, John went to poker, we ate dinner, played with the dogs, watched Desperate Housewives. But this is not a short recipe. Make sure you have a day to do this before embarking on this adventure. And make sure you have a enough tupperware to contain it all.

Beefed-Up Veal Stock

• 10 lbs veal bones, preferably with some meat left one
• 1- to 2-lb piece beef shin
• 1/4 cup canola or vegetable oil
• 3 large onions, unpeeled, cut into large chunks
• 4 carrots, unpeeled, cut into large chunks
• 3 heads of garlic, cut in half through the cloves
• 12-15 quarts of water

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. Place the veal bones and beef in a large, flameproof roasting pan and drizzle with oil. Place the pan in the oven and roast the bones for 25 minutes, turning them halfway. Add the onions, carrots, and garlic, distributing the vegetables evenly amongst the bones. Continue to roast until nicely browned by not burned, 45 minutes to 1 hour.
3. Transfer the bones and vegetables to a large stockpot. Discard the fat in the pan and add 4 cups of water. Place over high heat and deglaze the roasting pan, scraping up the browned bits. Pour the liquid from the roasting pan over the bones and add enough of the remaining water to cover them well.
4. Bring the liquid to a boil over high heat, skimming the surface as the foam rises to the top. Then reduce the heat to low and simmer, partially covered, for 6 hours, skimming occasionally and adding water if it evaporates enough to uncover the bones.
5. Remove the bones and the meat and strain the stock through a fine-mesh sieve. At this point the meat and vegetables won't have much flavor, but if you're a fan of overboiled food, by all means nibble away; otherwise, discard them.
6. Let the stock cool before transferring it to storage containers. The stock will keep, covered, in the fridge for up to 4 days, and in the freezer for 6 months. Skim the fat off the top before proceeding with recipe.

Bones and veggies.

So we wound up with 29 cups of stock, in the end. Here's what it looks like:Yeah. It doesn't look totally impressive, because it's just stock. But it's a lot of stock! And I'm sure you'll be impressed when I blog about my French onion soup. Later this week. Once I've had a nap.