Two of the many reasons I admire the French:
1. Their uncommon ability to stage a strike. A big one. Slogans and signs? Kid stuff — the French get their point across by, for example, shutting down the entire national transportation system. (Work to age 62? Mais non!)
2. French onion soup, a staple that certainly fuels many a vigorous striker.
In most French cookbooks, soupe u l’oignon is the first recipe in the soup chapter. It is basic, essential and ubiquitous.
Here’s one recipe that’s never failed me, from the 1972 cookbook “Charles Virion’s French Country Cookbook.” (Virion, though French, cooked stateside for most of his career, first for such prodigiously omnivorous clients as Orson Welles, later at the Monblason Inn in New York’s Hudson Valley.)
Onion Soup
From “Charles Virion’s French Country Cookbook.” Serves 6.
Ingredients
6 white onions, sliced
4 tablespoons sweet butter
6 cups strong beef stock
24 small pieces of bread (1 inch by 1 inch), sauteed in 1/2cup sweet butter until crisp
1 cup grated Swiss Gruyère cheese
1 tablespoon chopped fresh chervil or parsley
Directions
Saute the onions in 4 tablespoons butter until tender and cooked to a light tan color. Be sure not to burn them. Add the onions to the beef stock. Simmer 20 minutes and set aside.
Have your soup bowls ready. Place 4 of the croutons in each of the 6 bowls. Divide the cheese among the bowls along with a sprinkle of chervil or parsley. Now pour the piping- hot soup into each bowl.
“I can hear the critics,” he wrote, pre-empting them. “Why croutons, not toast? The croutons sauteed in butter add greatly to the soup.” (I agree, though I like bigger croutons, 2 or 3 inches square.)
As to the bubbly brown top? Virion eschews it: “The browning of a half dozen individual bowls of soup in the oven (is] a difficult, if not dangerous task for the harried housewife with only two hands.” (Balderdash. The bubbly brown top is essential, and I don’t know a harried housewife who can’t do it. Here’s how: Heat the broiler to hot. Add an extra sprinkle of grated cheese to each bowl and place them on a cookie sheet. Slide the sheet under the broiler for about 4 minutes, or until it becomes irresistible.)
All of this is tangential, however, to my real issue with Virion’s recipe, and most every recipe for French onion soup, which is: beef stock.
Beef stock is a fussy thing. Sure, you could make it yourself — it’s not that difficult. But it takes a lot of bones, which you probably don’t have lying around, and it leaves a remarkably durable aroma in the household upholstery. Also, it doesn’t keep well. Within a couple of days, it begins to taste … off.
Of course, you can buy beef stock. But I think the canned stuff tastes like the can, not beef. And the prices for palatable bouillon flirt with usury.
Some recipes suggest chicken stock as a stand-in. The problem is, you end up with chicken soup. Tasty, but not what I had in mind.
Besides. I wouldn’t mind having a vegetarian French onion soup in my holster. You know, for mixed company. (I can hear the purists now: Oh, la vache! Exactly.)
But vegetable stock is flimsy. It lacks body. It isn’t luxurious; it doesn’t have much (here comes my least favorite food-writer word) mouthfeel. And it wants for color, for the gorgeous deep purple of carefully coaxed beef stock.
Could I overcome these obstacles for a vegetarian French onion soup?
Determined, I took the second challenge first: color.
I tossed a mess of roughly chopped vegetables (root vegetables mostly: turnips, parsnips, carrots and so forth) along with some mushrooms and garlic in a roasting pan and put them in a hot oven for about an hour. They developed a rich, brown, caramelized exterior. Then, I simmered these in water, adding the deglazed brown bits from the roasting pan. The process produced a beautiful ruby-brown liquid.
But after straining, it still tasted flimsy. So to add body, I pulled an old trick out of my holster. I retrieved one piece each of carrot, turnip and garlic — no more — and blasted them in the blender with a ladleful of stock until they were totally liquefied. I whisked this slurry back into the stock. Instant body — without adding any butter or flour or starch.
Here is my recipe for brown vegetable stock, suitable for French onion soup. (Fair warning: It takes time. But it’s largely unattended time. Go rake some leaves while it simmers.)
The recipe makes 3 quarts, enough for a round of French Onion soup, plus another soup later in the week. (Butternut, perhaps or potato-leek.) Tip: If you’re making soup and stock on the same day, start the onions shortly after the stock begins its simmer. They’ll be ready at about the same time.
Brown Vegetable Stock
This stock is suitable for sturdy soups such as French onion. Makes about 3 quarts.
Ingredients
About 1/2 pound mushrooms (any variety — can be stems or offcuts)
A pound or so of root vegetables, scrubbed, then chopped into big chunks, about 2 inches each (choose carrots, turnips, parsnips)
One big onion, peeled and chopped into eighths
One head of garlic, separated into cloves, half of them smashed, the rest left whole
1 teaspoon of olive oil (no more)
A pinch of salt (no more; if you need seasoning later, add it later)
A healthy grinding of very coarsely ground black pepper
About 14 cups fresh water
Directions
Heat oven to 400 degrees. Toss all ingredients except pepper and water in a roasting pan. Roast for 1 hour.
Put stock pot over high heat. Add the roasted vegetables and black pepper and cover with 12 cups of water. Meanwhile, place roasting pan on stovetop over high heat and deglaze with two cups water. Add this liquid into the stock.
When stock reaches a boil, lower to a slow simmer for 45 minutes. Strain into a clean medium saucepan. Reserve one chunk each carrot, turnip and garlic (discard the rest) and place in blender with a ladelful of stock. Blend on high speed one minute or until completely liquified. Whisk contents of blender into strained stock. Cool and refrigerate until ready to use. Will keep for about 10-12 days, though it may separate as it sits.
Exactly the same as beef stock? Nope. But when I took this stock and used it in Virion’s soupe u l’oignon recipe (insisting, of course, on browning the cheesy top), the result was robust and complete.
And surely fuel enough to stage a sprawling national protest of some sort. (Note to my French amis: I’ll meet you at the pool when I’m able to retire somewhere north of 80. Save me a chaise.)
Got a recipe you’d like tinkered with? E-mail dining@denverpost.com.
