Desperado Onion Soup

February 20th, 2009  |  Published in All, Most Popular, Onion, Veritable Vegetables, Weeknight Recipes  |  42 Comments

Onions
Photo from Raza Traders

Desperado Onion Soup

4-6 T. butter
2.5 lbs yellow onions, thinly sliced
1/4 t. black pepper
2 t. fresh thyme, chopped
5 c. beef broth
2-4 oz gruyere, finely shredded
1-2 handfuls croutons (optional)

Melt butter over medium-low heat in a large soup pot.  Add onions and stir to coat evenly with butter.  Cook over medium-low heat until brown, tender, and caramelized, about 40-50 minutes.  Stir in black pepper and thyme.  Add beef broth and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to low and simmer for an additional 30 minutes.  Sprinkle cheese over the top and add croutons (if using).  Enjoy!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Long time no see!  The recent Modern Beet silence has been due to the fact that I made an international move and have been adjusting to life in Germany.  What a change it has been!

All in all, it’s been a fairly smooth process, minus a case of home sickness here and there over the past 6 weeks.  There was one major hiccup with our arrival here though — the kitchen in our apartment was not installed before we got here!

Renting an apartment in Germany is quite different than renting an apartment in Anytown, USA.  For instance, in German apartments, there are no closets — instead one keeps one’s clothes in a ‘kleidershrank’ (basically an armoire).  Also, overhead lights are not included with an apartment; had it not been for our quick thinking colleague who picked us up from the airport (and brought some lights with him) we would have been in total darkness the first night we were here .

The biggest difference though in renting an apartment in Germany versus in the USA is that in Germany, apartments don’t come with kitchens!  It is customary to bring your own kitchen (sink, oven, cabinets, refrigerator, etc) with you and install them yourself!  For me and Steven, this was a foreign concept indeed…  Luckily, we were aware of this when looking for an apartment last fall, and made it clear that we would need to have a kitchen supplied by the landlord.  They obliged, but seemed to forget our arrival date!  We had to go the first couple weeks without a kitchen!

I made this onion soup on the second or third day we were here when we had no kitchen, only a hot plate and one pot — hence ‘Desperado’….  But I suppose this goes to show that one can make an incredibly delicious from-scratch meal even with minimal ingredients and equipment.

The plan is to spend the next year here, then head back to San Francisco.  I imagine my cooking efforts are going to fall off a bit while I am over here for a few reasons — I want to spend a lot of time traveling, I want to spend time learning German, I want to spend time on musical endeavors (did you know in my ‘previous’ life I spent a year traveling around the world making field recordings and composing music? — but I am also quite sure my love of cooking will never fade!

« | Home | »


Most Popular