Elldrew don’t want their readers to think that the only thing’s we cook are bread based breakfast bakes, so to add a little variety, and as it is the season of giving, Ellldrew’s early Christmas present to you all is Mama Elldrew’s amazing “Merci Beau-Soup”. A long standing family favourite perfected over the years by Mamma Elldrew, this creamy mustard and onion soup is an easy and warming treat for a wintery night.
INGREDIENTS: (enough for 2 people for a meal with crusty bread or 4 people as a starter):
- 50g butter
- 3 large brown onions
- 3 garlic cloves (or adjust to taste)
- 50g flour
- 800ml chicken stock (we have also substituted vegetarian stock without any impact on taste)
- 200ml single cream
- 3 tbsp Maille Dijon mustard
RECIPE:
- Take the butter out the fridge and roughly chop, placing into a medium/large skillet or frying pan, allow to come to room temperature whilst you prep the other ingredients. If you don’t do this then don’t worry – it’s just to help it melt a bit quicker later on.
- Peel and roughly chop the onions. You’ll be liquidising them later so don’t worry about neat and even chopping; just dice them quickly.
- Peel and crush the garlic. Again this will also be blended so just use a garlic press; nothing fancy required here.
- Melt the butter in the pan on a low heat and throw in the garlic and onions tossing them well so they’re all nicely coated in the melty butter (this is a French recipe so don’t expect any healthy goodness or low fat substitutes today).
- On a medium to low heat soften the garlic and onions – this takes around 15-20 minutes stirring them every now and again. You essentially want them all soft and translucent, not caramelised and brown.
- Unless you have used a really big deep frying pan, or have been frying the onions in a saucepan, then around now it’s best to transfer the onions to a nice big saucepan. At least that’s what I did anyway, as I don’t trust myself not to make a horrible mess using a too small pan!
- Add the stock (now I bet you appreciate having transferred everything to that big saucepan!)
- Bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes.
- Blend the soup until smooth. You could do this by pouring it all into a blender, if you only have a hand blender then that will probably also work. Elldrew used their food processor and then sieved everything to make sure it was velvety smooth (as we despise lumps in soups) but you don’t need to go through that extra step if you’re not fussy.
- Pour the blended soup back into the saucepan and then stir in the mustard and cream and heat through.
- Season to taste and serve garnished with crispy fried onions (available from your local supermarket if you can’t be bothered to home make them) and chopped chives.
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