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Onion Soup
I large Spanish or three ordinary 2 tablespoonfuls of butter, onions, 2 quarts of stock, Salt and pepper to taste.
Peel the onions and cut them into slices. Put the butter in a frying-pan, when hot add the onions. Cover and stand on the back part of the stove until the onions are tender without browning. Then put in the soup kettle with the stock, boil gently thirty minutes, add the salt and pepper. Press through a purée sieve and it is ready to serve.
The ingredient list has been scrambled by the original two-column typesetting; read it as one large Spanish onion or three ordinary onions, 2 tablespoons butter, 2 quarts stock, and salt and pepper to taste. This is a white onion soup, not the browned French kind, and the whole recipe turns on that distinction.
- Do not let the onions colour"Tender without browning" is the hinge. Sweat the sliced onions covered over low heat, stirring occasionally, for 20 to 30 minutes; any caramelisation shifts the flavour and the finished purée turns grey-beige rather than pale ivory.
- "The back part of the stove"On a wood or coal range this was the coolest zone, used for long unattended sweating. Use the lowest gas setting or a heat diffuser, and stir occasionally so the onions do not catch.
- StockThe recipe specifies only "stock," which in a book of this date would have been homemade -- veal, beef, or chicken -- lightly seasoned and not reduced. Commercial broth is much saltier, so season only at the end as the recipe directs. A pale stock, or vegetable stock, keeps the soup light in colour.
- A purée sieveA conical or drum sieve pressed through with a wooden pestle. A food mill on the fine plate is the closest equivalent; a blender followed by a fine strainer gives a smoother result than the original ever achieved.
- Proportions run thinThree onions to two quarts of stock yields a thin, brothy purée rather than a thick modern potage. If you want body, double the onions rather than adding flour, which would change the character of the dish.
- YieldRoughly two quarts before sieving and simmering losses, serving about six as a first course. Best eaten the day it is made.
White onion soups like this were common in nineteenth-century plain family cookery and were often recommended for invalids, valued because onions kept all winter in a cellar and because the soup could be built on whatever stock the kitchen already had going. The Spanish onion named first is the large, mild, straw-skinned type, sweeter than a sharp storage cooking onion and so well suited to being eaten in bulk. The instruction to press everything through a purée sieve reflects a period preoccupation with smoothness and digestibility rather than any French technique; onions were widely regarded in household manuals of the era as wholesome and mildly medicinal, and a strained onion soup was often recommended for colds and for people recovering from illness -- a claim traditional rather than documented.