WarsawNan’s French Onion Soup
Fruitcakes I have known
It’s the week before my favorite time of year, Thanksgiving and Christmas. And with it brings all the jokes about Fruitcakes. Speaking of fruitcakes, my brother Joe….(insert drum ‘rim-shot’ here). . .OK, this posting is going to be hard for you to believe, but as God as my witness, every last word is true. I will begin with this TRUE statement: My oldest brother Joseph, has in his refrigerator, a fruitcake that is 32 years old. YES, the one pictured above. Once a year he breaks it out, slices off a piece, and EATS it. Yes, eats it. His claim is that the bourbon keeps it preserved perfectly. When he see’s that it’s dried out, he adds more bourbon and wraps it back up, places it back in it’s sarcophagus and puts it back in the fridge for next year.
Here’s the story. If you’ve read my “about me” page, you see that I said my aunt Peggy was for the most part a horrible cook. She of course did have dishes we kids loved, but for the most part, yeah – nasty. And on the top of the list of aunt Peggy’s nasty list was her fruitcake. Actually, calling this fruitcake of hers ‘nasty’ is an insult to nasty tasting food. To all the nasty tasting food out there, I apologize.
Each year she would make a couple dozen of these retched little horrors and ship them off to friends and family for Christmas. And I’m sure friends and family alike took said fruitcakes and used them as door stops or bug replant or catfish bait or simply tossed em’ in the trash. Her finishing touch was to add about 2 cups of bourbon to EACH loaf and wrap it in cheese cloth, then foil. Box it, ship it. I bet there’s some law about shipping such vile things in the mail.
My brothers fruitcake was from the last batch she ever made (we think). She passed away a couple years later. Joe has said he always liked her fruitcake. (The ONLY person I know who claims this). Him keeping this lone survivor is a way for him to remember her and have her as a visitor with him at Christmas time. All very understandable. I hear ya bro! I love and miss her too. . . But DAMN! Break out a photo or a video or something! Make some of her Pimento Cheese Spread or something!
Joe’s a high school English teacher. He told the story of his mummified fruitcake to his students one day and they didn’t believe him. He brought this fruitcake to school the next day for show and tell, and to the horror of his students, ate a piece. They stood there in disbelief and I believe a few of them even vomited. Word got out and the next thing you know the newspaper got wind of it and they did a spread on it. People all over the state of Indiana were nauseated. (I’m even getting a little woozy writing about it!)
When this thing was fresh it was nasty. In it’s current state, I don’t even want to imagine! Andrew Zimmern’s got nothing’ on my brother! And I’ve seen Zimmern eat some really nasty stuff! My sister Marty asked me “If a gun was pointed at your head and you had to choose between eating a bite of Joe’s fruitcake or a bite of fresh dog poop, which would you choose?”
“Can I get a bit of catsup with that poop?” I asked.
Bother: I love you and care about your health, as I know your wife and kids do too. I speak for the ENTIRE family here bro: Find a spot in your backyard, (where the grass already doesn’t grow) dig a hole, and bury that horrible thing! Say a little prayer over the top of it, tell aunt Peggy how much you love and miss her, say amen and genuflect and be done with it. If you DON’T, I don’t wanna hear about any lower intestinal problems you get hospitalized for. (I suspect you may have been adopted).
Thanks for the praise on my soup, bro! I’m like Deb… regardless of what claims a restaurant makes about their “awesome” French onion soup, I never order it because I KNOW it won’t be as good as my own. No brag, just fact.
As you well know, great cooks seldom measure… our eyeballs and taste buds are our primary measuring tools. So I don’t have a written-down recipe I can just copy/paste here. But I’ll share my basic tips on making it.
I use a very large electric skillet to caramelize my onions because you want ALL your onion slices to make direct contact with the hot surface. If you over-crowd your skillet, your onions won’t caramelize right. Be patient with this process because it’ll take 30 to 40 minutes to get a good caramelization on the onions…. you can’t rush it. I use one onion per how many servings I’m making.
I start my soup stock by heating up about 1/2 inch of canola oil in my big soup pot. Get the oil real hot and toss in a package (or two) of soup bones. Brown them up really well…. about 30 seconds before the “these are burned” stage. Then pour in equal amounts of canned/boxed (I use the big boxes of liquid broth) beef AND chicken broth. Mixing both chicken and beef broth is a valuable trick I learned from Harry, and it really makes a difference. Add black pepper (not too much), a bay leaf or 2 or 3 (depending on how much soup you’re making), and red wine vinegar. DO NOT EVER ADD SALT! You don’t need it! Trust me on this. I’m a salt junkie–LOVE salt–but the onions and the red wine vinegar trick your tongue into thinking this soup is perfectly salted.
Remove the soup bones from the stock before you add the caramelized onions. Give the used bones to your favorite dog.
After the onions have browned beautifully, add a little of the soup broth to the skillet to deglaze, then dump it all into your soup pot. Cover, turn heat to low, and let the flavors blend for about 30 minutes.
The day before making this soup I dry out slices of sourdough bread on my oven rack. Set your oven to it’s lowest temp. On my oven, the lowest temp is “Warm”, not a number. You want the bread as dry as possible.
When you’re ready to serve the soup, ladle it into oven-safe bowls filling to about 1/2 inch from the top of the bowl. Lightly butter one side of a slice of dried bread and place it on top of the bowl of soup, buttered side down. The butter acts as a barrier to keep the bread from soaking up the soup and getting too soggy before you can finish and get it served. Cover the top with your grated cheese mixture (I like mozzarella, asiago, romano and parmesan).
Place the bowls of cheese-topped soup under the broiler until melty and golden brown.
November 19th, 2009 | 
Author: 
Posted in Recipes
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