French Onion Soup

The weather recently has been GRIM.  Today is no exception.

It is a well-known fact that the more miserable the weather, the more you want to bundle yourself up in blankets, loafing on the sofa in front of the TV, with a big bowl of something warming and hearty.  I have a whole list of such comfort foods in my cooking repertoire that positively demand foul weather before they can be supped.  One such dish is French onion soup.

The French know exactly what they're doing with this dish.  It's an Alpine dish, in a way, that's designed for being chowed down at the top of a mountain in the most inhospitable of conditions to warm you up from the inside out. With a blizzard raging outside, what more could you ask for than a pot of this brown nectar with great garlicky chunks of crusty bread and topped with molten cheese?

Ingredients:

1kg yellow onions
Olive oil
75g butter
5 cloves of garlic
1 tsp brown sugar
350ml white wine
2 litres beef stock
75ml cognac / brandy
1 baguette
350g gruyere cheese

It's also remarkably cheap and simple, which is how I came to hone this particular skill whilst at university.  Since then I've graduated and started receiving an annual salary, but this recipe persists.  To keep the costs even lower you can sub in cheddar for gruyere, and omit the cognac.

1. Start by getting the oven on to 200°C and mincing two cloves of garlic into a bowl with 4tbs of olive oil.  Allow this mixture to sit for a bit whilst you get on with the soup.

2. Slice the onions relatively thinly, but not so much so that they'll turn to mush in the pot.  You want to be left with nice, long strands in the soup.

3. Melt the butter in the pan with the oil.  Add the onions and turn the heat up.  Don’t be perturbed that there are absolutely tonnes of the onions in the pan, that's perfectly normal and they'll cook away to about a quarter of that quantity – if not less.  Cook on a high heat until the edges have started to brown.

4. Turn the heat right down and let the onions cook right down.  You want to get the onions to a state where they’ve gone a caramelised, sweet brown, with lots of unctuous sticky goo gently bubbling away in the bottom.  Thomas Keller cooks his until they're properly dark brown and reduced to virtually nothing, but I think that's a bit excessive – I've tried it and it doesn’t seem to add an awful lot, to be honest.

5. Meanwhile, slice your baguette horizontally, so that you have nice rounds about an inch thick.  If you have a slightly stale baguette, then use that – it'll become less sloppy in the soup.  Lay them out onto a large metal baking sheet and brush the both sides of each crouton with the garlicky oil.

Into the oven they go, for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown and toasted.

6. When the onions are ready you'll have a pan that's coated with brown gunk and beginning to look a bit like it will never go back to normal.  Fret not.  Simply add the wine now and use a wooden spatula or spoon to scrape all the gunge off the bottom.  Et voila, a clean pan.  Throw the stock in now and bring the mix up to a gentle simmer.  Give it another hour or so now, tasting it every so often.  Initially there'll be an underlying sharpness which, as the mixture cooks, will gradually fade away.  When it does so, you're good to go.

7.  Whilst it's bubbling away, grate the cheese.  Arrange the croutons across the top of the soup when it's ready and sprinkle the cheese liberally over the bread.  Chuck it in the oven for five minutes (max) or until the cheese has melted – or, better yet, stick it under the grill so that the cheese can toast away quickly.

8. Serve by spooning out the soup into bowls and chucking in a half to a full measure (depending on taste) of cognac and giving it a quick stir.  Add a couple of croutons and you're good to go.

Scoff it all down with French wine.  We opted for a Gamay, served a little cold (frais, or 'fresh', as the French would have it), it's a perfect accompaniment.

- GrubsterBoy -

Rhubodka

It is most definitely forced rhubarb season.

There’s something really funny – almost dirty – about the term ‘forced rhubarb’.  But it’s effectively the luscious, sweet-sour pink stuff that we all really know and love as rhubarb.  It’s in season from December through to February, so we’re kind towards the end of this year’s run – but it’s not too late to still grab some!

For me, each year, that means one thing: Rhubodka, a glorious fusion of vodka and rhubarb, making a delicate liqueur.  It’s spectacularly easy to make, as well (like most infused alcohol drinks, like sloe gin or damson vodka / gin).

Ingredients:

500g forced rhubarb

250g granulated white sugar

1 litre vodka (Doesn’t need to be anything particularly fancy, but stay away from that Tesco’s blue & white stripe stuff, yeah?)

You’re also going to need a 2 litre mason / Kilner jar – something big, and solidly built (this last part is actually essential for this recipe).

Just a quick note on how to buy rhubarb: I could wax lyrical about this stuff all day, but I won’t (count yourself lucky).  It’s fantastic stuff (Is it a fruit? Or a vegetable? Or, even, a salad?) and should be treated well.  Just a follow a few rules: get bring, pink, healthy looking stalks, preferably from Yorkshire, which is the Mecca of rhubarb.  Also, the more spindly the stalk, the more pink there is in proportion to the rest of the fruit – which means the more of a beautiful, delicate pink colour the liqueur will end up.

Oh, one thing: Don’t eat the leaves.  They contain oxalic acid, which is toxic. 

1. First, sterilize your jars – wash them thoroughly in warm, slightly soapy water, then leave them to drip dry for half an hour in the oven at 130-140°.  Get them out (wear oven gloves) and let them cool right down.

2. Wash the rhubarb thoroughly, and then chop it into chunky chunks. 

3. Chuck the chunks into the jar and, using the end of a rolling pin or something similar, roughly crush the rhubarb chunks.  You’re not looking to totally macerate them, just mess them up a bit to release some of the juice and maximize the surface area for the vodka to interact with.

4. Add the sugar, close the jar, and shake like billy-oh.  Make sure that the sugar and the fruit are really combined.

5. Add the vodka, close the jar up tight again, and shake again. 

6. Keep shaking every day for the first week or so.  Then you can take it easy, provided that all of the sugar has dissolved into the liqueur.  Leave the mixture for about 3 months, then strain.  Fortunately, this is one of those mixtures that, because there is no seed or pith in rhubarb, leaving it too long is unlikely to cause a massive issue.  Also, it’s much, much quicker than the sloe or damson mixtures – it can be drunk immediately it’s strained, and can even be strained sooner than 3 months if you’re desperate. 

Drink straight, over ice, or with tonic water in a 3:1 ratio.  You can vary the recipe as well – it works well with a half-thumb-sized bit of peeled root ginger, sliced and mixed in.  Or, alternatively, throw a couple of sprigs of rosemary in there and see how you come out.

But, most of all, enjoy.

- GrubsterBoy -

Borough Market

Borough Market is perhaps the most established part of London's ever-growing food scene. Ten years ago, food in the capital was hardly a huge thing - fifteen years ago British food was synonymous around the world with phrases like 'bland', 'stodgy' and 'boring'.  Today it is anything but, and it is spots like Borough Market that has changed that.

That's not to say that Borough Market is a new addition.  In fact, there has been a market flogging food on that site since at least 1014, which makes it 1,000 years old this year.  Just think about that.  Sure, in the pre-Norman conquest days of yore I rather imagine that there was less flogging of white truffle infused flax oil and more basics like meat and potatoes, but it's great to know that the tradition of food selling has lived that long. 

Borough Market has something for everyone, as well.  Whether it's a present for a friend or relation (the only use that I can think of that white truffle infused flax oil might reasonably be put to) or finding that hard-to-find ingredient, Borough Market is a great first stop.  Even if your quest is ultimately defeated and you have to resort to the internet, I can almost guarantee you'll have found something else worth finding there. 

 - GrubsterBoy -

The Dining Room

That is roast loin of venison, served with roast parsnips, potato dauphine and hazelnuts.  It comes from the Dining Room at 28 Queen Street, Edinburgh, which is the restaurant in the Scotch Malt Whisky Society.  This was the main course of one of the very best meals that I have ever eaten in my life.  It was simply stunning.  Hay-smoked lamb, roast venison and a massive cheese board, washed down with a complimentary dram of malt, our bouches amused with peat smoked salmon roulade, kept quietly happy with a bottle of malbec and tucked into bed with coffees and complimentary handmade truffles.  All for less than you'd pay for two courses and a glass of wine in many London joints.  Bloody marvellous. 

Don’t be put off if you're not a whisky drinker – there's no obligatory whisky to drink. Just incredibly good fine dining at less than the usual fine dining prices. 

Sadly, a very, very low battery on the mobile left me unable to capture this meal and blog it.  But, if you're north of the border, please go.  You won’t regret it. 

 - GrubsterBoy -

La Tablita

La Tablita is a very long way to go for a dinner of roast lamb.  But it would be totally worth it if you did go.

 

Set in the town of El Calafate, Patagonia (yes, Argentina), La Tablita has won plaudits around the world for its food – and most of all its roast lamb, which has been described by some as the best in the world, a pretty tall order but not something I feel inclined to question as if it were in some way inaccurate. 

 

It's not just the lamb either – La Tablita is well renowned generally for its parillas – an Argentine speciality of grilling enormous hunks of meet.  Much of the meat is roasted in the traditional manner, arraigned on iron racks around a charcoal fire, to be slowly smoke roasted in the coals' residual heat. 

 

 

The meat is fantastic, and absolutely the star of the show.  We shared a missed meats platter, described as food for two but really providing enough for a small family to be satisfied.  We added to it with rosemary seasoned fries and a salad.  The Argentine thing of having a salad with grilled meats, by the way, is a truly magnificent idea – it totally cuts through all the fatty richness of the meat. 

 

 

All of it washed down with this pretty little number.  GrubsterGirl and I are both fans of malbec, but this was just in another league. 

 

 

We visited about a year ago now, but the experience stays with me.  The restaurant itself has a slightly Alpine feel – but then the whole town of El Calafate does too, as if it were a French ski resort off season (where everyone speaks Spanish).  We went in the Argentine summer, but I imagine in their winter it gets a whole lot colder and snowier. 

 

Patagonia is well worth the effort to get to.  Whether it's its broad, desolate landscapes, its majestic glaciers or its rocky peaks, that make it I don’t know – all I know is that it is just stunning.

 

 - GrubsterBoy -

An Italian Feast

Following our trip to Vallebona, the Italian-deli-in-a-warehouse of South London, we all piled home to whip up a big feast. Generally, I can't recommend that place enough - the difference between what you get there and what you get in the supermarket is like... Well, it's another world - like eating wholly and completely different food, albeit with the names you know and love.

Here we have a variety of fun, starting from the top of the picture and working down: Salame Finocchiona Toscana (with fennel seeds – they also have a delicious picante version, well worth a try); Bresaola (cured, tender beef); Speck (a smoked, cured ham that starts its life wrapped in juniper and garlic – very alpine, which is hardly surprising given that it's cured in the very north of Italy, up in the mountains); Venison Prosciutto (beautifully gamey, lightly smoked Bambi); and Lonza (smoked pork loin). Full marks, this stuff was epic.

We also sampled a little spicy sausage that started out like any other salumi and grew in intensity and flavour as eaten.

Nor did we hold back on the cheese. Starting at the top right and working clockwise, we had: Testun al Barolo (a cow's milk cheese aged in wine barrels and then wrapped in the lees (the crushed grape must) from making wine); Gorgonzola Dulce DOP (a young gorgonzola that's still fresh, gloopy and creamy – like a beautiful half way house between a blue and a stinky cheese); Taleggio DOP (another alpine product, and a beautiful, if quite well known, stinky soft cheese); and Robiola Tre Latti (a cheese made from a gorgeous combination of cow's, sheep's and goat's milks – soft and creamy on the outside, soft and crumbly on the inside).

The cheese - especially the Barolo - ought really to be eaten with Mosto d'Uva - a Sardinian ultra-concentrated grape juice that, like pickle with cheddar or membrillo with manchego, adds a beautiful fruitiness that cannot be equalled.

Nor could we resist the sweets. Seriously, how could anyone? Hard, brittle torrone nougat and panforte (an Italian desert from Tuscany of honey, spices, dried fruits and nuts pressed into a cake).

Also on offer were sunblushed morello cherries cased in rich, dark, bitter chocolate that were just phenomenal. No other words to describe them.

- GrubsterBoy -