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Cream of Onion Soup
Peal and slice thin six white onions, put in a large stew pan with two tablespoonfuls of butter and cook without browning for ten minutes. Add one quart of water, onehalf of a teaspoonful of salt, one quarter of a teaspoonful of white pepper, a pinch of mace and one-half of a teaspoonful of sugar. Cook slowly for one hour, rub through a purée sieve, add one pint of hot milk and return to the fire. Stir in one teaspoonful of cornstarch dissolved in a little cold milk and bring quickly to the boiling point. Cook for two minutes, draw to the side of the fire and stir in the yolk of one egg beaten with one cupful of cream. Remove at once and serve with croutons of fried bread.
A classic white soup built on a sweated onion base and finished with an egg-and-cream liaison. Nothing here is difficult, but the last step decides whether the soup is silky or grainy.
- The hinge: the liaisonOnce the beaten yolk and cream go in, the soup must not return to a boil or the yolk will scramble into threads. "Draw to the side of the fire" means take the pan off direct heat; temper the yolk with a ladle of hot soup first, stir it back in, and serve.
- Sweat, don't brownTen minutes in butter over low heat with the pan partly covered keeps the onions pale and sweet. Any colour at all will tint the finished soup beige and give it a roasted note the recipe is not after.
- Purée sieveA conical sieve or tamis, worked with a pestle. A blender does the work in seconds, though passing the blended soup through a fine strainer afterwards is still worth the minute it takes for a properly smooth texture.
- MaceThe lacy outer covering of the nutmeg seed, warmer and less sharp than nutmeg itself. Ground mace is still sold; a scant pinch of grated nutmeg is the nearest substitute, used sparingly.
- White pepperChosen largely for appearance. Black pepper will serve, though it tastes rather different and leaves visible flecks in a soup meant to be uniformly pale.
- The cornstarchOne teaspoon in the five or six cups of liquid here gives only a light body. Slake it in cold milk, never hot, or it will lump.
- Quantities and yieldA quart of water, a pint of milk and a cup of cream come to about seven cups before any reduction, so rather under two quarts finished: enough for four to six as a first course. Six onions will run to something like 2 lb.
- CroutonsThe recipe specifies only fried bread; the fat is left open. Cut small dice of day-old bread and fry until golden just before serving so they stay crisp on the surface of the soup.
Cream of onion belongs to the family of white soups common in genteel American and English cookery from the mid-nineteenth century onward, related to the French potages built on a sieved vegetable base and finished with a liaison of egg yolk and cream. The technique in the last two sentences is textbook classical practice: a starch for body, then yolk and cream off the heat for richness and gloss. The insistence on white onions, white pepper and no browning is about colour as much as taste.