Jeff, the A.D.D. Chef

When the weather turns cold I start thinking about soup, the “magical” food that needs only a handful ingredients and water. For the A.D.D.er, soup is another one of those cook-it-and-forget-it dishes. You can’t hurt the soup by leaving it on the stove for too long.

One note about the photo above. When people think of French Onion Soup they think of a bowl of soup with a one inch thick layer of cheese on top. If you need to control your intake of dairy products there is no harm in using just a few slices of cheese. This fulfills the basic French Onion Soup requirement needed for flavor and cheese stringiness. However, if you are still 20 or more years away from clogged arteries then you can create a thick layer of cheese by filling the bowl with broth till it is very close to the top and then placing enough layers of cheese across the top till you’ve sealed it up. But before you can add all that cheese…let’s first make the soup.

INGREDIENTS

Quantities below make enough for about three bowls of soup.

• 1/4 cup of butter or margarine
• 1 large yellow onion
• 32 oz beef broth
• 3/4 cup white wine¹
• 1 1/2 cups of water
• 2 or 3 Beef bouillon cubes (optional)²
• At least 4 oz of Gruyère cheese
• 1 baguette (in a pinch…use Italian bread)

DIRECTIONS

1. Slice up the entire onion into long pieces. (See Slicing Onions)
2. Melt 1/4 cup of butter (or margarine) in a large saucepan (3 or 4 quart size).
3. Saute the onions until they are limp and translucent.
   
4. Add the beef broth, water and wine. If you want a stronger flavor, add the bouillon cubes. (I skip the cubes in order to keep the total salt content down. The beef broth itself has a high sodium content.)
   
5. Simmer for 45 minutes.
6. Place a 1/2 inch thick slice of bread in the bottom of an oven-proof crock or deep bowl (these bowls are not expensive and have other handy uses…like for chicken soup. See Set of 4 Onion Soup Bowls.).
7. Ladle the soup into the bowl. The bread will rise to the top. When the soup is near the top…stop.
8. Cut at least four thin slice of cheese and lay them on top of the soup (the floating bread will help to keep them up).
9. Place the crocks in an oven heated to 350 F degrees and wait till the cheese melts (7-10 minutes). Alternately you can place the crocks under a broiler so you get a restaurant-like melted and brown cheese “seal” on top.

VARIATIONS

1. Add a teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce.
2. Skip the cheese altogether. The soup is great all by itself.
3. Use grated Gruyère cheese. This will give you the cheese flavor and may help you to cut down on the quantity of cheese.
4. Toast the bread prior to placing in the bottom of the crock.

Here is a brief histoire of le French Onion Soup.

1. Chardonnay or a Pinot is fine. I’ve learned to avoid “cooking” wine because salt is added to it. [↩]
2. They have a very high salt content and the flavor is fine without it. [↩]

Not every meal has to have fourteen ingredients and require the skills of a culinary-institute trained chef. In fact, sometimes the most satisfying meals have two ingredients - chicken broth and a box of pastina - and two skills: turning on the stove and pouring. If you can do those things then you’ve mastered pastina in soup.

What’s particularly great about this meal is that it is fast to make…REAL FAST to make. There’s no time to hyperfocus on anything else. (I tried to do that once and I boiled away half the chicken broth.) In fact, you have to watch over the cooking process the whole time. This is a great five minute mental health break when you are in the midst of a major project. And when the cooking is done, you can ladle some of it into a coffee mug, grab a spoon and head back to the digital salt mine (a/k/a, the computer).

INGREDIENTS

• Approximately 16 ounces of chicken broth
• One box of pastina or any other teensy weensy pasta

DIRECTIONS

1. Get a two-quart saucepan.
2. Pour in about 16 ounces of chicken broth (that’s half of the container shown above).
3. Turn the heat on high and wait till the broth boils.
4. Stir in a large quantity of pastina. How much is large? If you like the consistency of oatmeal (my preference), at least two-thirds of the broth should “disappear” so that there is not much liquid left. That consistency will require about 1/3 of a box (that’s a 12 oz box shown above).
5. Turn the heat down and simmer, stirring periodically to keep everything cooking evenly.
6. If you have the quantities just right you’ll end up with a sort of pastina oatmeal which will have the delicious taste of the chicken broth and enough of the pasta to satisfy your carb cravings.

VARIATIONS

1. You can decrease the amount of pastina so that it is more soup-like than oatmeal like.
2. Add a handful (or two) of frozen peas while the soup is boiling and before you add the pastina. Give it at least two minutes before you add the pastina.
3. Shred some leftover pieces of chicken (perhaps from the braised chicken) and add it to the boiling broth.
4. Sprinkle grated cheese on your soup to add a nice tang.

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

Do you have a two-ingredient recipe that you would like to share with others? Go to my contact page and send me some details of your recipe and it may get featured on an upcoming post on this blog. You can also email me at info at jefftheaddchef dot com.