The Greasy Spoon

The Old Original Bookbinder's Restaurant Cookbook

 

 

I've just bought this book for the princely sum of £4.50. From a little bookshop in the quaint Cotswold town of Chipping Camden, of all places. It's the 1961 edition of the official "Old Original Bookbinder's Restaurant Cookbook", by Charlotte Adams.

Bookbinder's was a distinguished American restaurant, first founded as a Philadelphia oyster saloon back in 1893. It's wikipedia entry describes its 1950s' heydey as ''a hot spot where red-jacketed waiters scurried through dark-panelled rooms festooned with photographs of VIPS; redolent of cigar smoke tinged with shellfish." This sounds very much my sort of place. I gather that the restaurant fell on hard times, lost its exclusive allure, became a tourist trap, and is now quite probably defunct. A pity, because I miss this sort of joint: the type of restaurant where a fawning mess-jacketed waiter might flamb-ay something jaw-droppingly expensive at M'sieur's very own table.

 

I've picked out two recipes at random, which I haven't tried yet, but, I think, with a bit of tweaking, could be good. The first one's for the obscene sounding "Crab Balls". I would suggest that you make these very small in size, and serve them as canapés- perhaps with some sort of a dipping sauce to go with them:

In a bowl mix together: one tablespoon of chopped green pepper, one tablespoon of finely chopped onion, one tablespoon of finely chopped celery, one tablespoon of minced pimento (ie sweet red pepper), and a teaspoon of fresh thyme leaves. Season with salt, black pepper and a dash of Worcestershire Sauce. Sweat in butter over a lowish heat for about ten minutes.

Sprinkle in four tablespoons of flour (this sounds like quite a bit, even too much; so I would suggest that you go easy on this) and stir in to the vegetable mix. Cook for a further five minutes. Next pour in a cup of milk, and stir until thickened (in effect you've made an old-fashioned white sauce). Then add a pound of crabmeat. Take off the heat, mix in well and chill the mixture in the 'fridge.

When it's cold enough, you take out the crab mixture and roll it into small balls. The balls are then dipped into beaten egg, coated with breadcrumbs- or even more authentically Yankee- crushed up cream crackers, and fried in deep fat until golden brown.

The second recipe is for "Bookbinder's Shrimp Chowder":

Sweat chopped onions in butter until golden, and put to one side. Make a smooth white sauce in the usual way from butter, two tablespoons of flour and four cups of hot milk. The sauce is then placed over a bain-marie, seasoned with salt, pepper and a blade of mace. Pre-Cooked shrimps (large prawns in England) are added and the whole thing cooked gently for twenty minutes. The mace is removed, and the chowder finished off with an extra cup of hot cream and the onion flavoured butter which you've previously strained off. On second thoughts, I'm not exactly sure about this recipe. It could be a bit bland: it's certainly a heart attack in a bowl- not that I'm one of those Cromwellian types pulsating with disapproval at any symptom of a sybaritic lifestyle. I'm not even sure if it's a genuine chowder; I suspect that it isn't.

In complete contrast, I had the most divine thing at the Canton yesterday evening. It was a vegetarian marrow gratin, served piping hot in one of those dinky orange Le Creuset dishes. Half a marrow- cut in half, and scooped out. Covered in Italian Borlotti white beans, and flavoured with a stock, perhaps, and most certainly salt and black pepper. Persillade (ie garlic and parsley finely chopped and crushed together) dotted the top, and the dish was finished off with grated parmesan and butter, before being flashed under a hot grill. At least, I think that how it was made. There may have been tomatoes in there as well. C'etait formidable.

 

Jerusalem Artichoke Soup

 

 

We served this soup to our lucky guests on New Year's Eve. Jersualem Artichokes are currently in season. They're nothing to with artichokes by the way: bizarrely, they're actually the tuber of a species of sunflower, Helianthus tuberosus; Winter root vegetables. They look a bit like small, knobbly potatoes, with a pinkish coloured skin, and were grown by the Native American Indians long before the arrival of the European settlers. I love their subtle, slightly earthy taste.

And there's something else about Jerusalem Artichokes you need to know: apparently they make you "windy", whatever that means. Every time some television chef mentions Jerusalem artichokes on screen, they suddenly "come over" all coy (the otherwise excellent Nigel Slater was a recent culprit), it's slightly bugging; my theory is that if you cook them well enough, you shouldn't have any problems.

Here's how I made the soup. It was velvety smooth; and utterly delicious:  Chop up some an onion or two and fry gently in butter and oil with some chopped celery. In the meantime, take your Jerusalem Artichokes and using a peeler, remove the skin. You might find it easier to cut off the knobbly bits first. Plunge the peeled artichokes into a bowl of cold water into which you've given a good squeeze of lemon. This will stop your artichokes turning grey. You'll find that they start changing colour very quickly if you don't.

Chop the artichokes into small pieces, and add them to the hot pan. Stew them gently with the onions and the celery for about fifteen minutes. When they're soft, pour in some stock (I used an excellent, slightly salty ham stock), and simmer for a further twenty or so minutes.

When the artichoke pieces are cooked (ie soft), transfer the contents of the pan (the artichokes and the hot liquid) to your magimix or blender, and puree the mixture until smooth. The soup will be a creamy-white colour. Push through a sieve into a clean pan (this will help to make the soup velvety-smooth), check the seasoning (I used an oak-smoked salt from Waitrose to give the soup a slightly smokey flavour, lots of freshly grated nutmeg and some white pepper) adding a decent squeeze of lemon juice, and stir in several tablespoons of double cream to taste. Stir carefully and simmer gently for a few more minutes until hot enough.

Serve with crisp croutons and garnish with fresh dill.

Clear Gazpacho

 

 

 

Clear Gazpacho is one of my favourite summer recipes. It's very easy to make, though slightly time consuming- but could be made in advance and then assembled at the last minute. It uses similar ingredients to a traditional gazpacho soup, but, instead, has as a base a mouth watering, flavour infused, clear, tomato "consommé".

Take a largish quantity of ripe red tomatoes and blitz them in your mixer with some sea salt. The riper the better, as the salt helps to draw out the juices. Next, line a sieve with muslin or coffee filter paper, and fill it up with the tomato pulp, placing a large bowl underneath. Stick it in the 'fridge and let the "tomato water" drip slowly into the bowl. When I'm in the mood, I sometimes add some crushed mint leaves to the pulp as well.

The next morning you'll have a bowl full of an amazingly clear, rose-coloured, light but flavour-rich, tomato stock. The first time I made it, I was amazed. Add a bit more salt to it, if it needs it.

Pour the cold tomato water into bowls. Garnish with thinly sliced radishes, cubed avocado, sliced baby tomatoes, crispy apple cut into tiny batons, red chili cut into wafer thin julienne, red, yellow and green peppers, courgettes, and chopped basil. The secret is to try and cut the ingredients into the smallest shapes you possibly can: these can include batons, diamonds, cubes and thin strips, as the mood takes you. If they're small enough, they should float on top of the soup with ease. Serve it chilled. That's it.

Minestrone Soup

 

Strangely, I don't think I've written about Minestrone Soup before. I'm not going to patronise you with a description; this is a dish we've all had time and time again, and of course you know how to make your own version at a drop of a hat.

I happen to think that the number one all-time recipe for Minestrone Soup comes from Arrigo Cipriani's The Harry's Bar Cookbook. His slightly refined version includes asparagus, and leaves out the pasta. When I'm cooking it, I like to dice up the vegetables into small pieces; I think it improves the look of the finished dish.

Here's how to make it, courtesy of Mr Arrigo Cipriani. (It will serve six people):

Heat up two tablespoons of olive oil in a heavy pan, and melt in a tablespoon of butter. Add a diced medium sized onion, and sauté over a medium heat until well browned. 

Now it's time to add the vegetables: a diced celery rib (peeled), two thinly sliced leeks (white part only), a large tomato (cored and diced), two small diced zucchini, a small wedge of Savoy cabbage (shredded and chopped), a medium potato (peeled and cut into small dice), a medium sized carrot (peeled and diced), and six asparagus spears (cut into slices). Throw in a bayleaf, and season with sea salt and black pepper. Cook on a medium heat and stir for about fifteen minutes.

Add two litres of stock (chicken or vegetable, I'll leave that one up to you), and ⅓ cup of tomato sauce. If you don't want to make your own, you could always use tomato purée. Bring the soup to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer, partially covered, for fifteen minutes.

Remove the bayleaf, stir in a tablespoon of butter, and check the seasoning. Serve very hot with grated parmesan cheese.

The Humble Cabbage

 

 

With the nights drawing in, and winter just around the corner, there's nothing more welcoming than a humble, everyday cabbage. Cabbage is one of those vegetables which everyone thinks they know how to cook, but in fact, is actually quite hard to get right.

There seems to be a general assumption amongst the cognescenti that cabbage should be cooked to a crunchy texture; well, Up to a Point, Lord Copper: quite often this just means that the cabbage is undercooked- and you'll encounter this in Gastro Pubs up and down the kingdom. 

On the other hand, I have nausea-inducing memories of the cabbage as served up to us at Dotheboy's Hall: this involved boiling water, a kitchen timer set to four and a half hours, the colour yellow, and a terrifying smell reminiscent of the Slough Gasworks. In the world of cabbage, you just can't win.

There are two methods of cooking cabbage. With the "fast-cook" method you slice up your cabbage and plunge it into rapidly boiling salted water. When it's cooked (difficult one to get right, that- you want it crunchy, yet not too crunchy), take it out of the pan and drain it in ice-cold water. This will help to set the colour green. Throw it into a small pan, warm it in butter and season to taste. Make sure that all the water has drained off properly. As I'm impatient (and also greedy), I have a tendency to do this in a rush (a "bull in a china shop", as my piano tutor used to say) and end up with nasty pools of water floating around on the plate.

The second method is the "slow-cook" or braising method, as favoured by the French (and The Greasy Spoon's grandmother). Yes, the cabbage will go yellow, and it will smell of sulphur, but if it's cooked very, very slowly, this might (just about) be a good thing. Simon Hopkinson, in his excellent book Roast Chicken and Other Stories, mentions John Tovey's recipe in which the cabbage is braised very slowly in butter, white wine and juniper berries. This sounds like the sort of dish they serve in Alsace, and my instincts tell me that a Reisling or Gewürztraminer would be just the ticket.

 

I've also found an old-fashioned French recipe for "Cabbage Soup with Diced Bacon". Chop up a green cabbage into small pieces and rinse it in vinegar and water. You then fry some chopped garlic in butter, and add diced bacon. After a few minutes add the cabbage and pour in some chicken stock. Simmer the soup very slowly for up to an hour. Serve in earthenware tureens with croutons sprinkled on the top.

If you're going to use the "slow-cook" method, a heat diffuser might be a good plan. This is a simple device which you place directly on top of the gas hob, and spreads the heat.  It will allow you to cook food at a snail's pace.

Aziz of Marrakech's Courgette Soup

 

 

More on things Moroccan. The food at the Riad Enija was excellent. The owner, Björn (a former architect with UNESCO) reckoned that his chef, Aziz, might be one of the best chefs in all Marrakech. This could be true. The food, although simple, was delicious.  

We signed up for the Riad's cookery "course" (in effect, more of a cookery demonstration) and watched as he prepared a smooth melon and ginger soup, followed by a tajine, cooked with baby okra which we had bought at the spice and vegetable market in the Mellah (the walled Jewish quarter) that morning.

 

 

One of the first dishes we sampled at the Riad was Aziz's courgette soup. I'm not sure if it was especially Moroccan, but who cares?- it was exceedingly good. Smooth, piping hot, creamy- with dollops of taste, and a nice, clear, fresh green colour to boot. I persuaded him to give me the precise recipe. Here it is, courtesy of Aziz of Marrakech:

You take a large pot, and into that you put: a kilo of chopped baby courgettes (zucchini), two crushed garlic cloves, a sliced white onion, parsley, 20g butter, and a dash of a decent salt. You pour in 1 ½ litres of water, and simmer for half an hour on the stove.

Afte

r the time is up, take it off the heat and pulse the liquid with a blender until it is smooth. Taste and if needed, add more seasoning, including 

pepper.

 

Aziz showed us a jar of those mixed coloured peppers in red, green and "white" and gave us the thumbs up sign- or Moroccan equivilent; he seemed, for some reason, to have an aversion to black pepper.

 

Strain it through a sieve and serve hot.

 

 

Smoked Haddock Chowder

 

 

January: cold, wet, dark, gloomy, and depressing; financially embarassing, too. No folks, it ain't my favourite month, and to combat all this, I need gutsy, unpretentious, winter food, as I'm sure you do as well.

Chowder is a classic American East Coast dish, usually a creamy soup enriched with salt pork fatback and traditionally thickened with crushed saltine crackers or corn. I've no doubt that each State or city have their own way of making it. Massachusetts will say this, Rhode Island will say that. Manhatten adds tomatoes, while in Maine, apparently, this is/was illegal. Here's my Limey take on it. I think smoked haddock (one of my all-time favourite fishes) works well. If Americans want to bombard me with abusive chowder emails- that's fine- please do; go ahead.  All I know is that it works, and I like it.

First, cook the smoked haddock. Try and buy a smoked, undyed fillet. The bright yellow fillets you see in the supermarket have been artificially dyed with all sorts of nasty chemicals. Undyed smoked haddock is a lovely, light cream colour. It's more expensive. but worth the extra cost, as the taste is far more subtle. In effect, the smoked haddock has already been cooked, so it will need very little poaching. Place it in a pan with a decent amount of water, to which you have added a bayleaf, a carrot, a small onion and one or two peppercorns. Bring it to the boil, turn off the heat and put the lid on the pan.

Next, in a large pan sauté some chopped salt pork or pancetta in unsalted butter. Add some finely chopped celery and onion or shallots. Pour in the poaching water from the haddock, and add some potatoes, which you've previously skinned and chopped up into smallish cubes. When the potatoes are almost cooked (which won't take that long), add milk and cream, and then the smoked haddock which you've broken up into large flakes.

Check the seasoning: chunky black pepper would be good, and it may or may not need sea salt, depending on how salty the haddock is. Add some fresh thyme and simmer the chowder gently for ten minutes. Serve with crackers.

Clear Gazpacho

Clear Gazpacho is one of my favourite summer recipes. It's very easy to make, though slightly time consuming- but could be made in advance and then assembled at the last minute.

It uses similar ingredients to a traditional gazpacho soup, but, instead, has as a base a mouth watering, flavour infused, clear, tomato "consommé".

Take a largish quantity of ripe red tomatoes and blitz them in your mixer with some sea salt. The riper the better, as the salt helps to draw out the juices. Next, line a sieve with muslin or coffee filter paper, and fill it up with the tomato pulp, placing a large bowl underneath. Stick it in the 'fridge and let the "tomato water" drip slowly into the bowl. When I'm in the mood, I sometimes add some crushed mint leaves to the pulp as well.

The next morning you'll have a bowl full of an amazingly clear, rose-coloured, light but flavour-rich, tomato stock. The first time I made it, I was amazed. Add a bit more salt to it, if it needs it.

Pour the cold tomato water into bowls. Garnish with thinly sliced radishes, cubed avocado, sliced baby tomatoes, apple cut into tiny batons, red chili cut into wafer thin julienne, red, yellow and green peppers, courgettes, and chopped basil.

The secret is to try and cut the ingredients into the smallest shapes you possibly can: these can include batons, diamonds, cubes and thin strips, as the mood takes you. If they're small enough, they should float on top of the soup with ease. Serve it chilled.

That's it.

Crab and Sweetcorn Soup

 

 

When I'm in the mood, it's fun to try and work out how Indian and Chinese restaurants make their time honoured favourite dishes. I'm not talking here about authentic regional cuisine, but more about those bastardised dishes we're used to back here in Blighty. You know the sort of things I'm talking about: Chicken Korma, Won Ton Soup, Meat Madras, Sweet and Sour Pork Balls. It's comfort food of a sort, and I think there's a place for it.

I've come up with a way to make Crab and Sweetcorn Soup. It tastes almost exactly like the stuff you get in Chinatown, so I'm pleased with the results. Talking of which, I once caught a waiter hiding behind a curtain sprinkling on some MSG straight from the packet before he served it- my version, I stress, does not include this.

Here's how you do it: Flake up some white crabmeat into chunks. I bet my bottom dollar the Chinatown establishments use the tinned variety; tinned crabmeat ain't that bad, in my opinion, but obviously, if you can get hold of the realy McCoy, so much the better. Chop up some root ginger into fine pieces, and mix it in with the crabmeat. Beat up two egg whites until they are frothy, and then add a tablespoon or so of cornflour, and some milk. Beat until smooth, so that you end up with a creamy liquid. Mix this in with the crabmeat and the ginger.

In a reasonably sized pan, bring some stock to the boil. I reckon that the Chinese restaurants make an Oriental style stock out of ginger, spring onions and the like; but for my version I used a light chicken stock. Add a tin of sweetcorn. Again, I've worked out that they probably use creamed sweetcorn, which is not readily available in British supermarkets (I could rant all day about how understocked our supermarkets are compared to other countries), so I just "crushed" the sweetcorn in the Magimix.

Stir in the crabmeat and ginger mixture, and simmer briefly. The cornflour will act as a thickening agent. Check the seasoning, and add a dash of sherry, or rice wine. Make sure the alcohol is burnt off, and finish off the dish with a a garnish of chopped spring onions.

Polish Food Revisited...

 

 

Apologies for my absence; the workload at The Counting House has been phenomenal, and I've been crawling back to my hovel exhausted, and lacking my usual joie de vivre.

Having said that, on Sunday, I took The Girl to The Wallace Collection to have a look at Fragonard's racy painting "The Swing"; and on the way back to The Silver Beast- parked rakishly (and badly) in Manchester Square, we passed none other than Stara Polska- or if you have been following this blog, "Old Poland". Well, we had to stop by and have a late lunch; and I had a second opportunity to re-try their White Borscht.

 

I've had an email from Nancy of Vancouver, who has very kindly pointed me in the direction of a website with an authentic recipe. If you want to have a look at this site, here's the link: http://www.soupsong.com/rbarscz.html

Otherwise, here's my take on it: First, you need to make a Barscz. In a mixing bowl, mix together a quarter of a pound of dark rye flour, with four cups of warm water. Lie a drying up cloth over it, and leave in a warm place for five to six days, stirring once a day, so that it starts to ferment. Bring a quart of water to a simmer on the hob. Beat together an egg, and a cup of milk, and then stir it into the simmering water. Turn up the heat, let it thicken, and then stir in the Barscz which you've made previously. Thicken it up even more, and season with salt and pepper.

In a serving bowl, place rye bread (torn up into chunks), a sliced hard-boiled egg, sliced smoked sausage (kielbasa), and freshly grated horseradish mixed with a little white vinegar. Ladle in the prepared Barscz stock, and finish off the soup with a bit more grated horseradish.

Check the seasoning and serve. I reckon that's almost exactly what I had at Old Poland, except they probably add some garlic, and also garnish the whole shooting match with parsley. Incidentally, the label I've used as an illustration is for the excellent Zwiec Polish beer. Don't ask me how to pronounce it exactly, but I like the stuff, and of course, it goes beautifully with hearty Polish food.

Stara Polska

 

 

Last night, I was taken to a new Polish restaurant in Marylebone- close to St Christopher's Place. It's called Old Poland, otherwise known as "Stara Polska".

It was a funny, ramshackled sort of a place, with stuffed squirrels in glass cases, and uninvitingly hard wooden benches. But the food was rather good- I reckon that the couple who run the place had probably just arrived off the boat, so the food seemed genuinely authentic; I hope they do well.

I had a delicious White Borscht soup. I've never had this before, assuming wrongly that all borschts were made from beetroot, and therefore pink in colour. Apparently, Polish White Borscht is a traditional Easter Dish. It was sour in taste (with a hint of horseradish?), with garlic, slices of sausage, and sliced hard boiled eggs. I've trawled the net looking for an authentic recipe, but so far haven't found one.

As I've got a hard day ahead of me at the Blacking Factory, I'm going to have to put this one on hold for the time being, and report back later. If anyone out there in cyberspace can send me a decent recipe for this, please do, and I'll post it up on The Greasy Spoon.

Over and Out.

 

Mushroom Soup

 

 

London, at this time of year, gets pretty cold and wet, with a general dampness that chills you to the bone. To counter this, I've come up with a recipe for a thick mushroom soup laced with garlic and parsley. One of the things that I like about this version is that the soup is thickened with bread- and the result is spectacular.

Melt some unsalted butter in a pan, and add some chopped up mushrooms. I like to use brown field mushrooms, which I've chopped up roughly, stalks and all. Stew them gently for about five minutes. Next, add some chopped garlic. Cook it for a bit.

Get hold of some bread, which you've previously soaked in milk. Squeeze out the surplus milk, and add the bread, in small pieces, to the mushrooms and the garlic. Now you can add some chicken stock, and a pinch of nutmeg.

Bring to the boil, and then simmer for about fifteen minutes. When it has cooked through, put the soup into a Magimix or blender, and give it a whizz. Put the soup back into the pan, add some double cream, and masses of chopped parsley. All you have to do now, is heat it up again and eat it.

Black Bean Soup

 

 

I've had fun researching suitable food for Hallowe'en. Along the way, I discovered Colcannon, a traditional kale and potato dish which is eaten in Ireland, and Gingerbread Husbands, which were eaten by young village girls to make sure they found a husband. And then I hit upon the brilliant idea of Black Bean Soup. It's spicy, warming, velvety, er- black, and with Mexican hints suitable for the Day of the Dead festival on November 2nd, too. Here's my version:

You can either use tinned black beans (which are hard to find in the UK), or dried beans which you need to soak overnight in cold water. In a pan, cook some chopped smoked bacon in butter for a few minutes. Next, stir in a chopped onion, chopped carrot, and two crushed cloves of garlic. It might also be a good plan to throw in a finely chopped green chili. One of those fiendishly hot small ones. I'll leave that up to you.

 

 

Next, you need to add cumin. If you've got time, you can dry-roast some cumin seeds in a hot frying pan, and then when they're popping, take them out and crush them in a pestle and morter. Otherwise you could use powdered cumin. Add the cumin to the pan, and stir in. Cook for a few moments. Tip in the black beans, some chicken stock, and a liberal dash of my favourite Tabasco Sauce.

Simmer on a very low heat with the lid on for about an hour and a half. You want the soup to be thick and velvety. The black beans should thicken everything up. Serve with sour cream, and chopped chives. A spicy Mexican Salsa would be good too.

Luckily, I'm not going to be at home tonight. In recent years, the mean streets of Battersea have become full of roaming gangs of ghouls, witches, Frankensteins and mad axe murderers on Hallowe'en Night. Yup, Tick or Treating has suddenly become big over here. It was quite amusing at first, but last year I found myself under siege, and had to retreat to the back of the house, while the street urchins shouted through my letter box: " 'ere Mishter...we know you're in there", or words to that effect. Well, tonight kiddos, you ain't getting anything from me. That nice Mr Scrooge in Number 43...

 

Russian Lemon Soup

 

 

Jiminy Cricket, I love this soup! I've taken it from Dara Goldstein's "A Taste of Russia", which is a must for your cookery library if you like hearty East European cuisine. It's extremely simple to make, cleansing, unusual, and most importantly delicious. Here's how you make it:

In your favourite pan cook a handful of rice (I use Uncle Ben's Long Grain American Rice) in unsalted butter until the rice absorbs the butter and becomes transluscent. This should only take a few seconds. Next add some good chicken stock (home-made si'il vous plait- I'll be coming to this in another post). Simmer for about twenty minutes.

You will probably need to add more stock bit by bit- you want to get the balance right between the rice and the liquid. When the rice is cooked, stir in some double cream, and the finely grated rind and juice of a lemon. Keep on stirring to make sure the soup is well blended.

Finally, serve in bowls with a slice of lemon floating on the top and chopped parsley or dill. Make sure that each bowl has a spoonful of the rice on the bottom of each bowl.

Cream of Onion and Cider Soup

 

 

It's that time of year again. Here in the gloomy streets of London the nights are drawing in, and a sniff of woodsmoke is in the air. Before we know it, Bonfire Night, and Hallowe'en will be upon us. And what better than a warming onion soup laced with cider?

Here's how you make it. First, you need to understand that onions need a great deal of cooking before they become palatable. I don't care what your cookery books say, you will have to trust me on this. You need to slice some onions. Throw a few knobs of unsalted butter into a pan. Now cook the onions. It's probably better if you've sliced them thinly.

Add some thyme. I'm lucky enough to have a vigorous plant thriving on my kitchen windowsill. Let the onions cook well, until they are soft, but not burnt or brown. So you will want to use a low heat. Now stir in some flour and let that cook.

Pour in a good slug (I love that word) of cider. I used a dryish West Country Organic Cider that I found in a local shop. At this stage it's important to let the cider bubble- to boil off the alcohol. Okay, we all love a good dram of whisky at the right moment, but I find that alcohol needs to be boiled off in cooking- otherwise you are left with a nasty bitter taste.

Now add some stock (chicken or vegetable is fine, home-made or reduced-salt Marigold Bouillon powder would be ideal). Cook the soup on a low heat look mad. Mine took over an hour before the onions were cooked properly.

When that's done, lower the heat and add a dollop of single cream, though double cream is likely to curdle. If you are using single cream and you don't lower the heat, you run the risk of the soup curdling. Season with a decent salt and ground chunky black pepper to taste. That's it. And if it's cooked properly it's surprisingly subtle and smooth.