French onion soup. (Not a recipe)

[Ricard with an H]

Some months ago someone responded to my onion glut by suggesting I make onion soup.

I have never made nor had onion soup made by anyone else and I'm surprised that I'm surprised about it's taste.

It's sweet and I'm not keen on sweet though I love onions and garlic in everything, using sugar to caramelise things doesn't always ramp-up the sweetness.

I'm home alone and I now have a large pan of french onion soup with 250ml of a nice dry wine (Painful) that I could have enjoyed in a glass. The croutons in this recipe were slices of toast with cheese grilled into the dry bread (My bread) and that worked with the soup.

Is onion soup always sweet ? I think I know the answer and the reason I shouldn't have bothered because too much onion in anything results in a sweet taste. Yes ?

I wonder if Mr Fox likes onion soup.

[peter]

My wife grates cheddar into her hot onion soup, says its delicious.

Personally, cooked cheese makes me heave, even the smell.

[sally wright]

Dear Peter,
try adding a little vinegar to the pot. Cider, white wine (preferable I think) or balsamic. A couple of tablespoons to start with and see how that tastes.
Regards Sally Wright.

[Stonecoloured]

I've got no idea about the soup... but VERY pleased you have a Mr Fox too He gets all our titbits and left overs!

[Ricard with an H]

Mr Fox isn't very popular around here though I regularly marvel at what a magnificent animal. This time of year we often see them walking past with parts of or whole lambs and whilst this is nature feeding the fox the farmer sees it differently. Most farmers bring their ewes in when they are lambing, we have one that does and cares for his lambs like babies. The other lets the ewes lamb out in the fields so the fox takes what he wants.

I think the next story was made up by farmer Walter Mitty, he maintains he often sees two foxes hunting lambs together so they can distract the protective ewes.

Back to the soup, unless I can add something to make it more suited to my taste I'll need to pour it onto the compost heap. Shame, I hate throwing good food away but I had to give it a go if just to use up good organically grown onions.

I'll try the vinegar Sally.

I have a new bread recipe that works very nicely. It's the usual white bread dough with half a teaspoon of yeast and 50 grams of sourdough starter mixed in. It isn't sourdough but the sourdough starter affects the gluten structure in the final proving giving a nice chewy crust with a hint of sour in the airy crumb. The French call it a poolish though they often make poolish with yeast.

Just thought I would share.

[Motherwoman]

The foxes hunting together are no Walter Mitty, a friend of mine saw 4 bring down a calf. He was too far away to do anything about it unfortunately. Vixens do live collaboratively and a mother teaching cubs to hunt will work as a pack.

All that onion soup... amber warning round your neck of the woods then!

MW

[Ricard with an H]

Very interesting and thank you for the update on my education. Unfortunately for any WM character they are tarred with the brush from previous laborations.

So, the fox does collaborate with other fox during the lambing. Is that fox, or foxes ?

The onion soup with white wine vinegar was an improvement so once again thanks to Sally.

[Westi]

Did you put some brandy & wine in it? It is sweet regardless though due to the slow sweating of the onions. Mr Oliver does an English onion soup which is not as sweet as it uses onions, shallots & leeks & lots of garlic so balances out the sweet.

Don't throw it out, tweek it with some of the suggestions on here, split the soup up into batches & try them - I also find fish sauce balances out flavors nicely & you can't taste it.

Westi

[Ricard with an H]

Thanks Westi.

A Google idea, I have leaks and a cauliflower in stock so tonight's vertion will be quit different. I may even seive some onions out of it. I only used white wine, yesterday addition of a little wine vinegar helped it and the bonus is I always have good home made bread though mostly its in the freezer.

My favorite bread for soup is white wheat with yeast and sourdough then rolled in Eincorn flour and seeds just before baking.

Finally I put my very professional mans apron back into used, I'm very proud of my apron. It's red-white-blue stripes and from Paris Bistro.

[Motherwoman]

Serious business, apron wearing. I had trouble with aprons not providing enough coverage in the upper echelons, one or other but not both seemed to be the order of the day so I concluded they must be 'man' aprons and proceeded to make my own from redundant curtain samples in a local haberdashery shop. Perfect size and enough to make a generous pocket! Not a problem you will have encountered Richard...

Like the sound of your bread, you seem to experiment a lot with different mixes and coatings.

MW

[Ricard with an H]

Like the sound of your bread, you seem to experiment a lot with different mixes and coatings.

MW

I tried to make bread for years though could always buy better than I baked, even yeast bread needs planning and time. Slow bread tastes better than fast bread though I can make a good white loaf by two o'clock same day. Adding seeds adds flavour and nutrients.

Sourdough is another matter, difficult to make free-form loaves so 100 Rye (For example) gets done in a tin. Other heritage flours that have little gluten also need doing in a tin, the great thing about sourdough is the wild yeasts partly digest the gluten and even with a very strong bread flour plus 50% rye it's difficult to get the dough to stand up because the gluten has been buggered by the wild yeast which make taste so good.

Mo has a very special apron she bought from that Japanese department store called Muji. The way the straps go around your neck and your arms go through means it gets held up almost to your chin and covers your boobs. They don't seem to stock this apron any longer, shame because it's a clever design particularly for ladies. If you need an idea I can lay it flat and take a photo of the strap layout that means the apron covers your uppers from arm-to-arm.

Almost like dungarees.

[Motherwoman]

Clever strap design and good coverage! Might have fun getting arms round for the button though.

I'm looking forward to having more time to experiment with bread as I love the stuff. At the moment I stick with pretty standard stuff in the bread machine, sometimes add pumpkin seeds etc to the mix. The time consuming stuff will have to wait as the government has seen fit to move the retirement goalposts and there's no pension for me until I work for 6 more years than I'd bargained for when I started out!

MW

[Ricard with an H]

The bread machine is really good and I regularly use it to make dough, then I tip it out to make a free form loaf. Free form loaves are tastier because of the surface area being available.
Colour is taste. In fact the square shape of the bread machine pan means when you tip the dough out its often a convenient shape for either cutting up to make French sticks or to roll and place in a broadform.

What I found with machine baked bread is the machine doesn't do the final folding and stretching with a final proof, this makes a big difference to your bread and its when I roll the dough in seeds.

Those buttons never get done up, I'm afraid her waist line isn't the same as when she bought that apron and I hope she doesn't get to read this post.

Such a coward eh.