More than forty years ago, I learned the trick of using well-browned onions for flavoring and coloring soup in preference to caramel or any other agent. I discovered this when I was the new, young, and very ambitious potager in the Paris Ritz Mr. Files, the general manager and a real gourmet, was particularly fond of soup and for dinner preferred an individual casserole of soup or a petite marmiteand a fruit dessert to anything else. One day, the stock bubbling in the marmiles on my range seemed to lack both color and flavor, and as it was getting near mealtime. I was more than a little concerned. We cooked on ranges that had flat tops, and it was our duty each morning to scrub the tops with dry salt until they were spotless, just as omelette pans are cleaned. So I decided to put some little onions right on the top of my range, let them get good and brown, and then put them in the marmites. Later that day. Mr. lilies told me how good the petite marmite had been. So from then on. I always added the browned onions, and he made it a custom to bring the guests to whom he was showing the kitchens over to my range to see “what made our petite marmite so good.” Lacking a flat-top range, an iron frying pan can be used, if the onions are turned all the time so they will be thoroughly brown. It is better nor to put fat in the pan, or only a mere trace, because it will rise to the top of the soup and have to be skimmed off.
Try eggs àl a tripe and see how cooking them this way gives a more delicate onion flavor to the dish.
Oeufsà la Tripe (Hard-Cooked Eggs with Onions)
Parboil 3 medium-sized onions, sliced, in boiling water for 2 or 3 minutes, drain, and place them in a saucepan with 3 tablespoons butter. Cook slowly without letting them brown. Add 3 tablespoons flour, season with salt and pepper, and mix together well. Add 3 cups milk (or half milk and half cream) and cook for ½ hour, stirring constantly until the sauce thickens and then occasionally. Slice 9 hard-cooked eggs and add them to the sauce. If desired, the onions may be strained out of the sauce before the eggs are added.
Shallots play an entirely different role in cooking. Their main use is to give a very special savor to sauces. Your Frenchman considers shallots as important for certain sauces as he docs leeks for his soups. I think it is unfortunate that they are not better known in this country. In many American cities, it is difficult to find a brisker of shallots, although in places where French cooking is the rule, as in New Orleans, they seem to be more common. Sometimes shallots are called “green onions.” They look like tiny onions, but their outside skin is very much browner. If you have a kitchen garden, you'll find them easy enough to grow, and for each shallot planted, you will harvest a bulbous cluster. They keep well in a cool, dry place until used. Their flavor is sharper, more distinct, and less sweet than that of onions.
There are two tricks to using shallots. One is that only a small quantity should be used to impart a subtle flavor to sauces; the other is that they should never be allowed to brown when cooking because this will give the sauce a slightly bitter taste. Shallots have a special affinity for wine, and in la baute cuisine they are always included in such sauces as vin blanc, bonne femme, chasseur, portugaise, and so on. The following recipes, one for chicken and the other for Ash, call for simple wine sauces flavored with shallots in the true French manner.
Poulet Sauté an Vin Blanc (Chicken Sauté in White Wine)
Clean and singe 2 chickens, weighing 2 to 2 ½ pounds each, and cut each into 8 pieces. Season with salt and pepper. Melt 3 tablespoons butter in a large frying pan and arrange the pieces of chicken in it, skin-side down. Cook them over a medium fire until golden-brown. Turn the pieces over, partially cover the pan, and continue cooking for 25 to 30 minutes. Remove the breasts and cook the remaining pieces for 5 minutes longer, or until they are done. To test for doneness, pierce with a fork, and if no pink juice follows the fork when it is withdrawn, the chicken is cooked. Remove the pieces from the pan.
Add 2 shallots, finely chopped, and ½ tablespoon flour to the butter in the pan, cook for 1 minute, and add ½ cup white wine and the same amount of tomato juice. Let this boil for a few minutes, stirring all the time to dissolve the juices that have browned on the pan. When the liquid is reduced almost half. add 1 tablespoon butter and roll it around in the pan to blend. Do not continue cooking after it is melted. Return the pieces of chicken to the pan to reheat for a minute. Serve them sprinkled with finely chopped parsley.
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