A few weeks ago, Tim bought a 25-pound bag of onions on a bulk buying spree. We're both in the philosophical camp that a meal isn't a meal without an onion--but somehow, even at an onion a day, we're losing the race against time.
So I turned to my trusty Best Recipe cookbook for French onion soup, that rich and dark and caramel-y stew of onions and not much else. I know I can always count on two things when I consult Best Recipe: that I'll be amazed at the flavor of the recipe and amazed at the time I spent on it. So far this afternoon, I've spent four hours with my onions--and with still half an hour or so to go (although honestly the onions cooked happily unattended for three of those hours), I'm not so sure I want to make soup with them any more. I just want to eat the whole pile right out of the pot.
And I'm no longer sure I can ever go back to cooking onions the easy way, sautéed for whatever time we can spare after work before we're too hungry to wait any longer. These onions--these Best Recipe onions, these Sunday afternoon onions--are unbelievably dark, shockingly and deeply flavorful, with no trace of the bite and snap that made my eyes water so much when I chopped them. They're completely transformed.
(Sadly, this soup only used 4 pounds of onions, so I plan to slow-cook the rest of them overnight and then pop them into the freezer for easy weekday meals the next few months.)
Love onions!
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