Onion
In England we give the name of onion to all the plants of the onion tribe. The leek is to us an onion, and so is garlic and the shalot. In old English the leek was the type, and garlic was but a gar-leek-a spear-headed leek. In the language of science, garlic is made the standard, and the onion is but a species of allium or garlic. It may be taken for granted that of all the flavouring substances used in cookery the onion is, after salt, the most valuable ; and cunningly concealed in a sauce, in a stew, or in a soup, it yields enjoyment even to those who would carefully put it from them if they saw it.
Onion Sauce. See the Soubise sauce, the Breton sauce, and the Sauce Robert.
Onion Soup in France is supposed to have the most amazing restorative virtue. The following is known as the Marquis de Cussy's favourite soup :-Peel twenty small onions, cut them in slices, and fry them of a good colour in a stewpan with fresh butter and a little sugar. Then moisten them with broth, and let them simmer for an hour. Towards the end of the process add crusts of bread; and when about to serve the soup, throw in a wineglassful of old brandy.
Fried Onions.-One word as to the French way of frying them, which results in something far more delicate than the strong-smelling, overpowering English dish of the same name. The onions ought to be fresh and juicy. Slice them crosswise, so as to produce rings. Shake these rings in flour till they are well covered. Then put them into a wire basket, and dip them in the frying-kettle of hot beef fat for five or six minutes. Drain them, sprinkle them with a little salt, and serve them.
Oxford
Two workable recipes sit inside this dictionary entry: the Marquis de Cussy's onion soup and French-style fried onion rings. Both need translating out of the 1877 kitchen.
- Twenty small onionsThe recipe gives no weight; twenty small onions would come to somewhere around 2 lb (900 g) trimmed, for which five or six large ordinary yellow onions, sliced thin, can be substituted.
- The hinge: colour before liquidThe soup depends on frying the onions to a good colour before the broth goes in. Butter with a pinch of sugar over medium-low heat, stirring often, until they are well browned; high heat scorches the edges before the sweetness develops.
- Moisten with brothThe recipe gives no amount; around 2 quarts (2 litres) of beef or veal stock suits this quantity of onions.
- A wineglassfulConventionally about 2 fl oz (60 ml) in cookery of this period. Add the brandy off the heat, just before serving, as directed "about to serve" — boiling it off wastes the point of using old brandy.
- Crusts of breadStale crusts stirred in near the end, as directed. There is no cheese and no browning under a grill in this version.
- Stewpan and frying-kettleA stewpan is a wide, straight-sided saucepan; any 4-quart pan will do. The frying-kettle is a deep pot of fat, here beef fat as the recipe specifies, though any fat with a high smoke point works.
- Fat temperatureThe original assumes the cook can judge "hot" by eye. Aim for 350-375F (175-190C); below that the flour coating absorbs fat and goes greasy.
- Five or six minutes is too longFive or six minutes is longer than thin rings need -- at proper temperature they are done in 2-3 minutes, as soon as they are pale gold. Fry in small batches so the fat does not drop below 325F.
The Marquis de Cussy, whose "favourite soup" this is, was a real figure and not a flourish: Louis, Marquis de Cussy, served as prefect of the palace under Napoleon and wrote on gastronomy, and his name attached itself to a number of nineteenth-century dishes as a mark of refinement. The entry's philology is sound too — Old English garleac does combine gar, a spear, with leac, the leek, so garlic is literally the spear-leek, and leac covered the whole tribe long before "onion" (from French oignon, Latin unio) arrived. The passage is typical of Kettner's, published in 1877 and generally attributed to the journalist E. S. Dallas: an alphabetical dictionary that mixes etymology, opinion and working instructions in the same breath, and rarely resists a comparison in which the French method comes out ahead of the English.