A Soup Supper

The rainy Saturday meant that soup seemed like a good meal.    With good leftover sirloin steak bones, we started a pot of French Onion Soup or soup a l'oignonn gratinee as the French call it.    We braved the rain to go to the Farmer's Market and the onions were especially nice this week we thought.

In the winter, soups or casseroles are often Saturday night fare.    Casual food for Saturday night.    It's not winter and even though it was rainy on the prairie it really wasn't all that chilly!

The breakfast room all set for Saturday Supper 

With blue and white china and a bottle of wine.

An old damask tablecloth with a great hand crochet border.   I think it was a way to take an old (and perhaps holey) tablecloth and give it new life as a smaller cloth with a  lacy edge.     Our everyday napkins in silver napkin rings and the German silver -- love those big soup spoons!

The English barley twist candlesticks and a wee orchid in a wee Asian pot that Husband Jim brought home from Japan ages ago.

Bowls of soup, glasses of wine, and hunks of French bread.

We both adore soup a l'oignonn gratinee and although it is an easy soup it is a time consuming soup which is why we probably don't have it often.      (Even if we use beef broth rather than starting with steak bones!)

It's an old recipe that I've had "forever".    It's without wine and cognac so perhaps it is really French Onion soup rather than soup a l'oignonn grantee!    

It was so good that it reminded me that perhaps I should make it more often in the fall and winter.  

FRENCH ONION SOUP

To prepare beef broth:     Simmer the bones from a large sirloin steak for several house in 4 cups of water.    Let it simmer down to 2 cups of consomme.   Strain.

1 1/2 pounds white onions

2 T. butter

2 T. flour

4 cups boiling water

2 cups beef consomme or broth

1 T. cream

French bread

3 or 4 T. grated Gruyere or Swiss cheese

salt and pepper to taste

Peel, then slice very thinly the onions.   In a large frying pan melt the butter, add the onions and cook at medium heat until the onions are a nice golden brown, about 10 minutes.    Add the flour and stir in well.   Put the onions in a Dutch oven or Staub casserole.    Pour in the water and consomme.   Cover lightly and simmer slowly for 10 minutes add salt and pepper to taste.

While the soup is cooking dry in the oven as many thin slices of French bread as will cover the bottom of a deep ovenproof casserole or “cocotte”.   Or put one slice in the bottom of each of several individual heat resistant soup bowls.    Remove soup pan from fire; add the cream.   Empty the soup into the cocotte (or individual soup bowls).   But don’t fill them too full.    The bread comes to the top.    Cover bread with the grated cheese and put the dish (or dishes) in the oven at 250 for about 20 minutes.    Serve in the dish (or individual dishes) very hot.

And, as Julia would say -- Bon Appetit!

It is Thursday and I'm sharing my Saturday Supper table with Susan at Between Naps On the Porch for Tablescape Thursday.