English Onion Soup with Sage and Smoked Gruyere Cheese

I made this soup 2 weeks ago and thought that I'd share it to you guys(it's sunny outside so I decided to go out and be under the sun after 2-3 months of winter darkness, instead of staying at home and cook).  This isn't your typical French Onion Soup.  The ingredients are different from the traditional soup.  I used chicken stock instead of beef stock(I think it's better with the chicken stock), different types of onions(red, yellow, white, pearl, and shallots), smoked gruyere cheese and just regular toasted bread.

It's quite easy to make but it takes a hella lot of time to cook.  I think it took me around an 1 hour to cook over 1kg of onions and if your thinking of using homemade stock, then it'll take you 2-3 hours to cook it(unless if you're a rebel like me and make a stock within an hour....LOL!).

Here's what I used:

English Onion Soup with Sage and Smoked Gruyere Cheese

1kg of Onions(as many different type of onions as you can...didn't know there was such a thing as a white onion)
Sage and then some for garnishing
Olive Oil
Butter
Salt
Pepper
Stock(Your choice of beef or chicken.  If you wanna go completely vegan, use vegetable stock.)
Any type of bread(toasted or stale bread, which is apparently better.)
Smoked Gruyere Cheese (or whatever is available to you)
Garlic, crushed
Worcestershire

1.  Heat your pot and place your olive oil, butter and garlic.  Sweat it.
2.  Add your onions and sage and salt it(this will draw out the moisture from the onions faster).  This is the longest part of cooking onions, which is caramelizing it until it becomes soft and sweet to the taste.
3.  Once your onions are caramelized, add your choice of stock and let it simmer for a good 15 minutes.  Adjust your seasoning at this point.
4.  Preheat your oven or even your toaster to 400F.  Ladle your soup into ovenproof bowls.  Top your soup with toasted bread and grated cheese.  Place in the oven and let your cheese melt(around 1-3 minutes).
5.  After the cheese has melted, take your bowls out of the oven and garnish it with sage leaves and a dab of Worcestershire.
6.  Serve and enjoy!

White Chocolate and Walnut Soufflé

Yes!  Been thinking about making a blog for all of the recipes I've re-created or made and this will be my first post.

This morning, I decided to re-create Dirty Apron's White Chocolate and Cranberry Soufflé.  In my version, I've replaced the cranberries with walnuts instead.  It's still mighty delicious.  The only thing that bothered me was the lack of flour in the recipe because at work I've been using flour and coco powder in our chocolate soufflés(it's more of a lava cake). 

 The recipe was easy enough to follow but I managed to burn the white chocolate wafers.  So I went on to measure my butter and chocolate only to find out that I didn't have enough chocolate to make 1 recipe.  So I thought to myself, "I'll just dress up and drive down to the nearest grocery store...at 7am?!" 

You must be wondering why I'm up and baking at 7 in the morning.  Why?  It's because I usually wake up at 4:30am just to get ready to go to work.  Sleeping in for me usually means waking up as late as 6-7am. That's quite luxurious if wake up at 4:30am on your weekdays.

To make this simple story short, the soufflé turned out pretty good with some minor adjustments.

Recipe from The Dirty Apron Cooking School.

Ingredients:
White Chocolate 125g
Butter 75g
Sugar 75g
Dried Cranberries 60g(I substituted this with chopped walnuts as a topping)
Egg Yolks 6
Egg Whites 6

Extra Butter and Sugar for the ramekins and Icing Sugar for the Soufflés.

Directions:
1.  Set up a double boiler and place your butter and chocolate to melt while pre-heating your oven to 350F(original recipe calls for 400F).
2.  Butter your ramekins with a brush and place in the fridge.  Once butter has solidified, re-butter again and cover it up with sugar.  Tap out the excess sugar after.
3.  Whip your egg whites and your sugar in small increments.  Whip until soft peaks have formed.
4.  Once chocolate and butter has melted, combine your egg yolks in it and whisk well.
5.  Throw in your egg whites and FOLD.  This will create a fluffier soufflé.
6.  Scoop into ramekins and top it off with the walnuts.  If using cranberries, fold it in the mixture as well.
7.  Bake in the oven for approximate 10-15 minutes.
8.  Dust it with icing sugar when ready to serve.  BTW, your soufflé will collapse once it's cooled down.