French onion soup

There are any number of recipes for this classic dish

• Elaborate with bay leaves and fresh thyme.
• Delia Smith - even more elaborate making your own croutons
• More simple - but not much more

Common themes or points are: Use of beef broth for stock; sugar to help camarelise the onion; white wine; gureye cheese for the topping. The following recipe is from Julia Child.

The onions for an onion soup need a long, slow cooking in butter and oil, then a long, slow simmering in stock for them to develop the deep, rich flavor which characterizes a perfect brew. You should therefore count on 2½ hours at least from start to finish. Though the preliminary cooking in butter requires some watching, the actual simmering can proceed almost unattended.

For 6 to 8 servings

Ingredients

• 1½ lbs. or about 5 cups of thinly sliced yellow onions
• 3 Tb butter
• 1 Tb oil
• A heavy-bottomed, 4-quart covered saucepan


• Cook the onions slowly with the butter and oil in the covered saucepan for 15 minutes.
• 1 tsp salt
• qtr tsp sugar (helps the onions to brown)
• Uncover, raise heat to moderate, and stir in the salt and sugar. Cook for 30 to 40 minutes stirring frequently, until the onions have turned an even, deep, golden brown.
• 3 Tb flour
• Sprinkle in the flour and stir for 3 minutes.
• 2 quarts boiling brown stock, canned beef bouillon, or 1 quart of boiling water and 1 quart of stock or bouillon
• ½ cup dry white wine or dry white vermouth
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Off heat, blend in the boiling liquid. Add the wine, and season to taste. Simmer partially covered for 30 to 40 minutes or more, skimming occasionally. Correct seasoning.
(*) Set aside uncovered until ready to serve. Then reheat to the simmer.
• 3 Tb cognac
• Rounds of hard-toasted French bread (see recipe following)
• 1 to 2 cups grated Swiss or Parmesan cheese
• Just before serving, stir in the cognac. Pour into a soup tureen or soup cups over the rounds of bread, and pass the cheese separately.

GARNISHINGS FOR ONION SOUP

• Croûtes—hard-toasted French bread
• 12 to 16 slices of French bread cut ¾ to 1 inch thick
• Place the bread in one layer in a roasting pan and bake in a preheated 325-degree oven for about half an hour, until it is thoroughly dried out and lightly browned.
• Olive oil or beef drippings A cut clove of garlic
• Halfway through the baking, each side may be basted with a teaspoon of olive oil or beef drippings; and after baking, each piece may be rubbed with cut garlic.

Post mortem

Probably did'nt really carmelize the onions properly after leaving some of them to burn a little, but not so bad. Lots of butter used and also had to add quite a bit of salt and a whole pack of beef stock. Also added cognac at the end, but this seemed to put the kids off who found it too rich. Final result was actually not bad, but a lot of trouble. Baking the croutons also added something.

Net time...

• Check the initial caramelization more closely.
• Add some water at the end - actually it ended up coming up a little too much liquid.
• May need salt, depending on the stock

Roast peppers with yogurt sauce

Made this but now can't find the recipe!. Simply put two peppers on the tray over the gas flame until the skin blackens - which will take quite while. Then put in a ziplock bag for a while in order to steam further and loosen the skins. Peel, cut into strips and then put into a bowl of yogurt flavored with some garlic and salt.

Spinach with tomato garlic sauce

Another recipe with the fantastic advantage of being very, very simple but at the same time very healthy. Known as Salladirma from Sakarya-Marmara Region apparently. Here is the recipe.

Ingredients

• 1 bunch baby spinach, washed
• 1 small onion, sliced
• 1-2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 large tomato, peeled, diced
• 1 tbsp crushed tomato, canned
• 4-5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• Salt
• Pepper

Preparation

1. Boil the spinach for about 2-3 minutes, drain.
2. Meanwhile saute the onion with olive oil for about 2-3 minutes.
Add the garlic. When the smell of garlic comes out, add the rest of the sauce ingredients. Cover and cook until the tomatoes are soft at low heat.
3. Place the spinach on a serving dish. Spoon out the sauce all over it. Keep it in the fridge. Serve the dish at room temperature or chilled.

Fried eggplant with fresh tomato garlic vinegar sauce

Worked out very well. A key point was salting the eggplant and leaving for a while before squeezing out the water and then frying. This prevents the eggplant absorbing so much oil when it is first cooked. Cooking the eggplant pretty much browns it. This is a surprisingly easy and simple recipe with pretty guaranteed decent results (at least on the first attempt).

Here is another pretty identical recipe. Note that cubing seems an alternative to slicing and tinned tomatoes an alternative to fresh tomatoes which should probably be de-seeded.

The Turkish cultural ministry appears to have this recipe on its web site.

Ingredients

• 1½-pound eggplant
• Salt
• Olive oil
• 1½ pounds fresh ripe tomatoes, peeled and minced
• 1 tablespoon crushed garlic
• 3 teaspoons vinegar

Preparation

1. Peel eggplant lengthwise in a striped fashion and remove the stem. Quarter it lengthwise and cut into ¼-inch-thick slices. Sprinkle generously with salt and let stand at least 1 hour.
2. Rinse eggplant in plenty of water, squeeze each slice dry, and fry in 1 cup hot olive oil until golden brown on both sides. Drain on paper towels.
3. To make the sauce, pour off any remaining oil from the frying pan and put in 1 tablespoon fresh olive oil.
4. Add tomatoes and sprinkle with a little salt; simmer until tomatoes form a sauce, mashing them down with a fork.
5. Stir in garlic and vinegar and remove from heat. Taste and adjust with salt and vinegar.
6. Place the eggplant in a serving bowl and cover with the sauce. Serve cold or at room temperature with crusty bread.

Tabbouleh

A must at any barbeque, this fresh tasting salad is more herbs than bulgar, as is traditional.

Certainly a lot of chopping in this. Tips: Worth trying to chop the parsley pretty finely and not leave any big not so well chopped bits. Lemon juice from a bottle worked out fine and also the medium bulgar wheat - one suggestion was cooking and then toasting a little to dry out, which is probably a good idea but worked OK.

This is a recipe with quinoa instead of bulgar wheat. This is a recipe with cherry tomatoes as well and quite a lot of mint.

Ingredients

• 25g/1oz bulgar wheat
• 2 large, ripe vine tomatoes
• large bunch fresh flatleaf parsley, leaves only, washed, dried, finely chopped
• small bunch fresh mint leaves, washed, dried, finely chopped
• 1 small red onion, peeled, finely chopped
• 2-3 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 2-3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• sea salt flakes
• 4 ready-made flatbreads, to serve

Preparation method

1. Place the bulgar wheat into a small bowl and cover with 50ml/2fl oz of boiling water. Stir, then set aside for 20 minutes, or until the bulgar wheat has absorbed all of the water.
2. Cut out the green stalks from the tomatoes and make a small cross at each of the bases. Place the tomatoes into a separate bowl and cover with boiling water. Set aside for 30 seconds, then drain away the water.
3. When the tomatoes are cool enough to handle, peel and discard the skins. Cut the tomatoes into quarters, discard the seeds and dice the flesh.
4. Transfer the diced tomatoes to a serving bowl.
5. Add the parsley, mint and onion to the tomatoes and mix well until combined.
6. When the bulgar wheat has absorbed all of the water, fluff it using a fork until the grains are separated. Add the bulgar wheat to the tomato mixture.
7. Drizzle over the lemon juice and olive oil and season, to taste, with salt. Mix well to coat the ingredients in the liquid.
To serve, divide the tabbouleh equally among four serving plates. Place one grilled flatbread alongside each.