This onion soup recipe is very simple but requires love for flavour to fully flourish.

This is YOUR soup, you can make this soup to your preference. Don’t worry about the recipe too much. Bring time, patience and attention to detail when prepping the onions and your taste buds will be impressed.

What you need to buy: 

Onions, lots of them. I am sure some onions are better than others but work with what you have. 1kg minimum

Almost everything else is optional.

What you need to do:

Shortform instructions

1. Slice your onions finely
2. Add oil to pot
3. Take time to caramelise onions
4. Chardonnay splashes
5. Add spice 
6. Add garlic
7. Add stock cubes
8. Add water
9. Simmer & stir frequently
10. Add more chardonnay and/or water
11. Add potatoes cut into cubes
12. Stir, simmer,
13. Serve

Longform instructions:

1. Slice your onions as finely as you find the patience and endurance to.
   The thinner your onion slices the better the final result in my opinion. 
2. Add some olive oil and heat in a heavy base pot. Add your onion slices and bring up the temperature to a low medium, sweat your onions, stir them lovingly while you keep chopping and slicing and adding more onion slices to the pot and watch your onions become translucent and don’t stop until they start to take on a caramel golden colour. Keep tabs on the heat: It mustn’t be too high or you will burn the onions and that’s NOT the flavour you are going for. The more care you take in caramelising your onions the sweeter and deeper the final onion soup flavour will become. 
3. The more time you take at this stage the more impressive the final result will be. This part of your cooking process could take 30 to 90 minutes, depending on your onion amount and pot size and your patience. 
4. Add a splash of chardonnay once in a while to cool down the pot in case the heat is a little high and your onions are getting a little dry. Chardonnay will add extra flavour, you can use a budget bottle, but the nicer the wine the better it will support your soup. If you don’t have wine use warm water straight from the kettle. That’s ok.
   
   During this stage you can also add your bay leaf and other spices you are using. (clove, juniper berry, black pepper)
   
5. Add garlic and sweat it into the caramelly onions. Stir regularly until the garlic has softened. 
6. When you are ready, ready is when YOU choose that you think those onions are finally caramelised. You add warm or hot water from the kettle. Add a fair amount. Submerge your onions with an inch or so of water above them. 
7. Add more black pepper
8. Simmer & stir
9. Simmer
10. Simmer & stir
11. Repeat as long as it takes for the soup to develop a nice consistency and the flavour to become rich.

Ingredients:

1kg Onions (minimum)	essential	slice then finely, infinite patience is needed
water	essential	Measurement by eye, start with 1 liter and reduce by simmering. Add more water towards the later stage of the cooking cycle, to meet your consistency preference.
Stock cube(s), onion flavoured if possible	useful	It helps to have a couple but you can make soup without
garlic		Optional, but nice (as much as you like, 5 -8  sections is good, use more or less to match your preference)
salt	essential	Your stock cubes will do much of the saliness lifting but in case you don’t have a stock cube, just salt and pepper will get you there.
Black pepper	important	important
Chardonnay white wine	useful	optional but oh soooo good
1-2 Bay leaf	nice	optional
3-5 cloves	nice	optional
juniper berries	nice	optional
standard potato or japanese sweet potato (the purple one with white core is my favouite)	stretch your soup without diluting it	Optional. Add when you think it will take another 20 / 30 minutes for your onions to become so soft that they almost melt into the soup.

Take care of your onion soup like you would take care of a risotto and you will be rewarded.

Stir, add a little more water, keep checking and stirring every so often. Check the onion consistency, they should melt in your mouth without chewing and you know they are ready.

Serve: 

With fresh or toasted bread

Optional fine tune serving options: 

Add a heap of grated cheddar cheese and/ or single or double creme.
You can even experiment with non dairy creme replacement options (but at this point I would opt for chardonnay over vegan cheese/creme)

Soup Shelf-Life 

This soup keeps GREAT for a few days in the fridge.
You can prepare it 2 days before a special occasion and it will taste fabulous. 

Journal

Food is life and making your own food makes for a better life. Sometimes I feel a little bothered by being the main chef in the family. I sometimes find it burdensome to cook on most days. But whenever I stop and reflect I remember what a privilege it is to HAVE food to cook and to have the skill to make food taste amazing with simple ingredients.

I don’t want to cast a shadow but there is a possibility that the best times in our collective experience of life are behind us. It is possible that during our lifetime we will get used to having less than we had just 5 years ago. That possibility is always there for everyone, anywhere. I think we should celebrate the food we have today and give it some time, love, spice and probably a lot of garlic. 

Add food to your gratitude list.

Even if your food is simple or basic. (Rub some garlic on it.)

Maybe you can’t afford to splash some wine on your onions, you can compensate by taking more time and you may have black pepper to add with enthusiasm (use as much as you like but try using a LOT).

Let me know how your soup turns out.

(If you are feeling adventurous you can share and tag me on instagram #birgitsonionsoup )