The not-quite-French Onion Soup

When life gives you onions... you make onion soup.


1kg onions, sliced
1 tsp sugar
2 tbsp butter
Rum (Optional)
1litre beef or leftover stock
Salt and pepper


1. In a large soup pot, brown onions with butter and a little salt for 45 min over low heat. Stir occasionally to allow for even browning.

2. Add stock and sugar, bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer until it loses a third of volume.

3. Mix in a tablespoon of rum before serving. Serve with crusty cheese toast. Makes a litre of soup.

Cost breakdown:
Kilo of onions $1.20
Gee, that's about 20 cents a bowl.

Tags: Onion soup

Soupe Al' Oignon (French Onion Soup)

Just like Noel, I became a student again and therefore had to start living and cooking cheaply again.

Because I have 22 contact hours a week at uni, I am always home at nightfall and by then I am just simply too tired to even think of boiling water. So I decided to be smart and cook 3 large freezer/fridge-friendly meals every weekend.

This is part one: Soupe al' oignon or French onion soup. I discovered this recipe while watching the excellent food program, Food Safari on SBS. It is extremely cheap to make and taste better the longer you keep it. Perfect for winter too!

The most expensive thing here would be the gruyere cheese. But believe me, it is definitely worth buying it because it is the tastiest cheese I have ever eaten and blends extremely well with the soup. I got my cheese for AUD $5 from a deli in the market. NEVER buy cheese from money-sucking Safeway or Coles. Markets are the way to go.

I believe it's always handy to have a bottle of white wine in the fridge. It gives food (even pasta) the extra kick. Any cheap white wine would do; even cask wines (the bottom of the barrel). In this recipe, I used Muscat (a very sweet dessert wine) and it turned out wonderful. Besides, Muscat is a wonderful thing to take a swig from everyday!


Soupe Al' Oignon

Unsalted butter (60g)
Brown onions (5; peeled and finely sliced)
Flour (50g)
Water (2 liters)
White wine (1 glass)
Gruyere cheese (French or Swiss; 100g; half cut into cubes, half grated)
Baguette (1)
Salt & pepper

1. Melt the butter in a large pot, add onion and cook stirring for 25 minutes (yes, that long) over a low fire until the onions are a deep golden brown colour and beginning to caramelize. They should be extremely soft and look as though they've got stringy bits of cheese mixed into it.

2. Add flour and stir quickly for 2 minutes.

3. Add water and the wine. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Add the cubes of gruyere cheese, stir in and bring to boil.

5. Turn the fire down to low, cover and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes. Give it a stir once in a while and check the seasoning.

6. While simmering, slice the baguette into thick slices and sprinkle with the grated cheese on top. Place under a hot grill and remove when cheese melts.

7. Spoon the soup into a bowl and serve with the toasted baguette on top.

Voila!

Pasta Lalah

Lalah is a kind of local shellfish. It doesn't appear every day, so when the day it appeared in the supermarket I picked up a small serving for a song (like, all of 50 cents). The idea is to use the sauce to steam the mussels before integrating the shellfish, sauce and pasta together. My pot was large enough to prepare the sauce in it, then place a stand and a shallow dish inside to steam the lalah with it. If you don't have a large enough pot, you can consider emptying the sauce into a microwave steamer and steaming the lalah there.


Pasta Lalah (serves 1)
15 lalah or clams
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 leek, chopped
1 tomato, chopped
3 tbsp white wine (strictly optional, but there are some flavours in tomato that are only soluble in alcohol)
1 tbsp tomato paste
1/2 cup Water
Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper
1 serve pasta, cooked (I used linguine)

1. Cook pasta to al dente and toss lightly with olive oil. Set aside.
2. Over low heat, sweat the leek and garlic with a little salt until wilted.
3. Add tomatoes, tomato paste and white wine and stir for a minute before adding the water.
4. Use the sauce as the base liquid to steam the lalah for three minutes.
5. Deshell mussels, and return to the pot with the pasta. Mix well and serve.

* Be sure to wash your lalah thoroughly! They are real dirt collectors.

Total cost: RM 1.40++
Breakdown:
Lalah - 50 cents
Leek - 50 cents
Tomato - 40 cents
(The rest are stuff you should always have around in the kitchen anyway)

Tags: Pasta, Lalah, Shellfish