No. 723

Puree of White Onions Soubise and Puree of Onions, Brown

Puree d'Oignons Blancs Soubise et Puree d'Oignons Brune

For the first puree, mince a pound and a half of white onions, plunge them into boiling, salted water and let them parboil for ten minutes, drain them well and put them into a saucepan over a slow fire to allow the moisture to evaporate, add a little good stock and let reduce till dry, then pour in a pint of well thickened bechamel (No. 409), and reduce the preparation over a brisk fire until it becomes consistent. Season with salt and sugar, pass through a sieve and return it to the saucepan and heat the puree without letting it boil, adding a little melted meat glaze (No. 402).

To make the brown puree, abstain from parboiling the onions, but instead, fry them very slowly until they assume a fine color, then mingle in a little espagnole (No. 414), and reduce till consistent; strain the puree, heat it once more and add to it a little melted glaze (No. 400).

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For the Modern Kitchen

Two onion purees from Ranhofer's garnish chapter: one white and creamy, one browned and meaty. Both are thick enough to hold their shape on a plate, not soups.

The hinge: reduce until it holdsBoth purees are finished by boiling down until the mixture is "consistent" — stiff enough that a spoon drawn through leaves a trail that closes slowly. Underreduced soubise weeps liquid onto the plate and ruins whatever it is garnishing.
Bechamel, No. 409"Well thickened bechamel" here means a heavier, stiffer sauce than a modern coating bechamel; Ranhofer sends the cook to his own No. 409 for it. A pint is 2 cups, added to 1 1/2 lb of minced onions.
Meat glaze, Nos. 400 and 402Ranhofer's glaze is stock reduced to a syrup that sets firm when cold. A commercial demi-glace or reduced homemade stock stands in; use it sparingly, since it is the salt as well as the gloss.
Espagnole, No. 414The brown sauce of the period: brown roux, brown stock and mirepoix, cooked long and skimmed. For the brown puree a well-reduced brown stock or demi-glace gives the same body without a day's work.
Do not boil after sievingOnce the bechamel-based puree has been passed and the glaze stirred in, keep it below a simmer. Boiling at that stage causes the butterfat to break out and the surface to look oiled.
Parboiling mattersTen minutes in boiling salted water strips the sulphurous bite from the white onions and keeps them pale. The brown puree skips it deliberately — those sugars are what caramelise.
Browning is slow work"Fry them very slowly until they assume a fine color" means long, patient cooking over low heat with regular stirring; no time is given. Rushing it gives scorched bitterness that no amount of espagnole will hide.
Passing through a sieveA drum sieve and wooden pestle was the original tool. A food mill or a short blitz followed by a fine strainer gets there; a blender alone leaves the onion fibre suspended rather than removed.
Salt and sugarThe sugar is corrective, not sweetening — a pinch or two to round out any sharpness left in the onions. Add it after the reduction, when the concentration is settled.

A Little History

Soubise is named for Charles de Rohan, Prince de Soubise, an eighteenth-century French marshal whose kitchen is traditionally credited with the onion puree that carries his name, though as with most such attributions the link is culinary lore rather than documented fact. By the time Charles Ranhofer set down The Epicurean in 1894, after decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, soubise had long been fixed in the classical repertoire as a garnish and a bed for lamb, veal and eggs — which is why it sits here among the garnishings rather than the soups, cross-referenced to the mother sauces by number in the manner of a professional kitchen manual. The paired brown version shows the period's systematic habit of mind: the same vegetable, one preparation white with bechamel, one brown with espagnole, each finished with the matching meat glaze.