Wrapping up our week of French-themed meals last night, Gaby and I decided to make a gigantic pot of Soupe a l'Oignon Gratinee (better known at every Applebee's in the land as French onion soup). This was risky: Gaby does not usually like soup, and the consumption of vast quantities of onion does not usually agree with either of us. Still, we took the plunge, mostly because onions were pretty much the only food we had left at the end of the week.
It was not a disaster, but due to some questionable substitutions, we had, after about an hour and a half, gallons of a liquid that was not quite like any French onion soup we had ever seen. Looking back, it is plain to me that we should not try any more creative variations on recipes until we've actually made them as suggested first.
Where we went wrong:
"No beef boullion? Any chicken? No? Okay, well I guess vegetable broth will be okay . . ."
"White wine, huh? Let's use this sherry instead. It's almost white."
"We don't have any French bread or Swiss cheese. Oh what the hell, it's not like we've been that punctilious about this so far. Cut up some Italian bread and throw some grated Parmesan and Asiago on it."*
*Actually, this was delicious. And the bread was home-baked by Gaby!
So in the end, we ate a very strange-flavored broth indeed. It is small comfort that one aspect of the soup came out correctly: properly harnessed, the roiling energies of our digestive tracts could power our apartment building for a week.
No comments:
Post a Comment