Tuesday, December 14, 2010

French Onion and Egg Drop Soups

So I am on my three week holiday break from work. I know it is only teachers who can complain about having three weeks off, everyone else would relish it, I am just having a hard time with our new school year schedule. I need this week off during the summer where it is warm out and I can actually do something rather than now where I am sitting next to my space heater, even with the heat in the house on, because it is 10 degrees outside. The next three weeks are to organize..my house, my National Board stuff, my computer, etc. While I'm blogging I am waiting for movies to load into imovie so I can put together our dvd for this year. We just got a video camera in June to tape our wedding, but already I have enough for 4 different DVDs and have to start putting them together... what else is 3 weeks for? Relaxing? I dont know how!


One of the things that I am organizing, is my recipes. Today I am going through two of my soup recipes from the three weeks where I could only drink liquids and eat soft foods. Both turned out really good for being soup (not one of my favorite things, even though I have 3 huge books of soup recipes). These may not be the most exciting pictures, but keeping track of the recipes on my website allows me to print out them out later (important for this organizing binge Im on!)

French Onion Soup


Ingredients

2.5 lbs of onions (sliced into 1/2 moons then sliced in half again)
1/2 stick of butter (1/4 cup)
4 cups of beef broth
Salt
Black Pepper
Parmesan or Asiago Cheese

Put the pot (or saucepan) on medium heat. Cut the butter into small chunks and place in the pot. After the butter has melted and begins to foam, put in the onions. Stir the onions so they are covered in butter and add a teaspoon of salt. Turn heat to medium low and let the onions cook, stirring every once and awhile. Caramelizing the onions typically takes 45 minutes or more at this heat. Let them turn a mahogany color, but dont let them burn. Pour in your broth and turn the heat to high so that it boils. Then turn the heat down and let simmer for 1/2 an hour or more--you want the soup to reduce and look shiny. Season with salt and pepper, pour into bowls and add cheese and any other toppings you like.

Egg Drop Soup
Adapted from Gourmet

Ingredients

5 cups of chicken stock
1 tsp of soy sauce
2 Tbs cooking sherry
1 tsp of ginger powder or 1 two inch piece of fresh ginger
2 garlic cloves smashed
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 green onions, thinly sliced
2 tsp sesame seed oil
Ground black pepper

Bring stock, soy sauce, sherry, ginger, garlic to boil in a pot. Simmer for 4 minutes, then remove garlic and fresh ginger (if added) with a slotted spoon. Stirring soup in a circle, add in eggs slowly. Simmer for around 1 minute until eggs are cooked. Take off of heat and add cut scallions and sesame seed oil along with salt and ground pepper to taste.

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