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Around My French Table, Dorie Greenspan, Emmental cheese, French Onion Soup, homemade bread, onion soup
They say every pregnancy is different… and boy is this one different! Baby is doing everything noticeably earlier and he/she has been kicking all day! But never when Mei is laying over the belly… hmmm… surprise attack possibly headed her way?
At any point, the reason of mentioning this is that today I had planned a nice meal of pulled pork sandwiches, baked beans and of course, our French Fridays assignment, French Onion soup! We brined and rubbed the pork down and put it in the oven early this morning so it could slowly come to temperature and cook into its tender-falling-apart-ness that makes a pulled pork sandwich just so delicious and amazing, the beans went into the crock pot to sit all day and stew into something worthy of the pulled pork and later this evening, I started in on the onion soup.
One thing is certain, if Dorie says – DO IT. Usually I push her directions to the max and if she says to caramelize to a deep golden brown, I push it until it is nearing black but when it feels like the baby is trying to make it’s way out this early and putting pressure in places it shouldn’t be yet, you just don’t have the energy or patience to wait out the deep golden color you want. So I took my insanely huge pile of onions and stuck them in the dutch oven, managing to cook them for about an hour and a half before calling it good enough. And if the undue pressure from the baby wasn’t enough, it was nearing 8pm and the 3 lb pork shoulder that went into the oven around 11am that should have been done by 4pm still was about 30 degrees from finished so the husband unit was begging for any food to be done so we could eat since he usually goes to bed around 9pm to get up in time for work.
*wince* So I just went ahead and called it good when the onions turned a nice, golden hue – but they were certainly not the “deep golden” color that Dorie suggests and that I had been aiming for. But between the baby and the husband, it was just time to get the soup to the point where we could eat it and focus on trying to get the pork to be finished as well.
As it turned out, the soup was a light golden hue, smelling of sweet, caramelized melting onions and we fitted our little ramekins with a portion of homemade white country bread that I baked up a couple of days ago, toasted it and covered it all with Emmental cheese and slid it into the oven.
The ramekins came out with golden, crispy edged cheesy and puffed bowls of onion soup – it was delicious! I just wish we had the patience to wait out the onions a bit longer… but as it was, our pulled pork wound up being roast pork sandwiches since we just didn’t want to wait until near midnight for something should have been done hours ago. The beans, I am happy to report were a great side, even for the onion soup, and while the onion soup wasn’t truly Parisian nor was it piping hot – it was worth the effort and certainly worth making again in the future when I can give the onions all the time they want!
To see how the other Doristas fared with this one, click here. To join our group or to get the recipe, find yourself in possession of Dorie Greenspan’s “Around My French Table” and join in the fun! It’s delicious and worth it!