Recipes

French Onion Soup

Source: Edmonds Cookery Book

The Edmonds Cookery Book has been the New Zealand Kitchen Bible for generations. It is simple to follow, its recipes are excellent, and its pages can and do absorb huge quantities of splashed ingredients without sticking together. Buy it.

It is truly a book for all seasons. It has survived the transition to metric ingredients - though the old editions are now collectors items. It has outlasted Aunt Daisy's cookbook. Its marmalade recipes work. Some of its biscuit recipes have been successfully adapted (I believe) to absorb huge amounts of marijuana, and it's French Onion Soup is fit to grace the table of any fine restaurant.

When I have ransacked the family archives for some of my favourite Gran Woodward recipes, on more than one occasion I have been led straight back to the Edmonds Book.

You will need

3 tablespoons Butter

6 medium Onions, thinly sliced

1 teaspoon Sugar

4 cups Beef Stock (As a rule, I use 4 teaspoons Maggi Beef Stock Powder in 4 cups of water. Real is better though.)

To Taste: Salt and Fresh Ground Black Pepper

1/4 cup Dry Sherry. (Hard to obtain these days in the average household. )

4-6 slices cheese on toast.

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add onions (and sugar). Cook slowly for 15 minutes or until the onion is golden. Add the beefstock. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Just before serving, add sherry.

For some reason, I have a mental block about the cheese on toast in this recipe, and I don't think I have ever served it. No matter. It tastes just fine.