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Oatmeal and Onion Soup
Peel and slice an onion of medium size, scald and drain it, cut it into thin slices, and cook them in an ounce of butter for half an hour, shaking the pan occasionally. Add a pint of stock made from bones or from a calf's foot, or other gelatinous material; let it boil, and add by degrees a table-spoonful of coarse oatmeal. Simmer for an hour and a half, then add a seasoning of salt and pepper, and a heaped tea-spoonful of cornflour mixed to a paste with milk. Boil again for ten minutes, thinning the soup, if necessary, with more stock or hot milk.
A thrifty invalid-style soup that depends almost entirely on the quality of the stock. Two terms need translating before you start.
- Coarse oatmealThis means pinhead or steel-cut oats, not rolled oats or instant. Rolled oats will disintegrate into paste well before the ninety minutes are up; pinhead oats keep a little bite and thicken gradually.
- Cornflour is cornstarchBritish cornflour is the fine white starch sold as cornstarch in the US, not cornmeal. Mix it to a smooth paste with milk, as directed, or it will lump.
- The pintAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, about 2.5 US cups. Have another cup of stock or milk warm and ready, since a tablespoon of oatmeal plus starch will thicken more than expected.
- Scalding the onionPouring boiling water over the sliced onion and draining it removes the harsher sulphur compounds and gives a milder, sweeter result. It is worth doing here, since onion is the only aromatic in the pot.
- Half an hour in butterThis is a slow sweat over low heat, not a browning. Keep the pan barely sizzling and covered between shakes; colour on the onion will muddy what should be a pale soup.
- Gelatinous stockThe calf's foot is doing structural work, giving body the small amount of oatmeal cannot. A good roasted-bone or veal stock, or a chicken stock made with wings and feet, gives the same effect; a thin commercial broth will leave the soup watery.
- StirringOatmeal settles and catches. Stir up from the bottom every ten minutes or so during the long simmer, and keep the heat at a bare tremble.
- YieldAbout two generous servings or four small cups. Passing it through a sieve or blending briefly gives a smoother texture.
Oatmeal has a long history as a thickener in British kitchens, and this recipe sits at the point where old and new overlap: the oatmeal does the traditional work, the cornflour finishes it in the newer, smoother style Victorian cooks admired. It is an economical everyday preparation, close kin to Scotch broth and to the onion-and-oat gruels long given to the sick and convalescent. The calf's foot named for stock is a reminder of how households once obtained gelatine, boiling down feet and bones for the body they gave a dish before packaged gelatine and stock cubes made the practice unnecessary.