French Onion Soup

I was reading Cook's magazine at a friends house and came across a recipe for French onion soup that I tried out today. I didn't have the magazine but I made a good try based on what I remembered.

The interesting thing is that I sort of messed up. I started with a little more than half an onion and one clove of garlic in butter and olive oil (I was only trying to make just one bowl of soup). I followed the spirit of the Cook's magazine article which was lots of deglazing but because I had so little onion in such a large pan meant that it carmelized too quickly. My inspiration was that as long as I threw out the onion after carmelizing it to death, it would provide lots of flavor. So I kept deglazing and perserving the broth that resulted. Eventually I just threw out a big mess of milk chocolate colored onion but I kept lots of broth that had grabbed the flavor while deglazing.

After a trip to Wholefoods I began again with a large yellow onion. This time I kept the heat a little lower but still deglazed as much as possible. Since there was more onion this time, I didn't cook the crap out of this onion like I did during the last attempt. Finally I threw all of the stuff into the pot - one can of chicken and one can of beef broth, one glass of champagne, some thyme, and of course some salt and pepper.

I let the soup boil off quite a bit and finally put the broth and about half of the onions into my soup bowl. I didn't have any gruyere nor french bread so I substituted a toasted piece of wonder bread over which I then melted some mozarella. That part wasn't that good however the soup was pretty darn tasty.

Pizza

Boston isn't renowned for its pizza but you can certainly get some good stuff here. And it depends on what you are looking for.

If you want traditional New York style pizza, then I think you will be really happy at New York Pizza in the Theater district. I'm talking about a plain slice of pepperoni, crust very flat but just the right texture, cheese that you can taste but does not overwhelm, just the right amount of sauce, and of course lots of pepperoni and pepperoni grease. Others will tell you if you like thin crust to checkout the Upper Crust but their unusual medleys, I find there crust way too chewy. Same applies to Bertucci's (at least as far as the crust goes).

If you want a little higher end (especially if you want a little ambiance), then Cambridge One and Stellas are examples of two places with flat crusted pizzas that you might want to try out.

Pizza Regina in the North End is pretty famous locally though I've only ever had it take out. It didn't blow me away, but I'm curious enough to go there and try it fresh. In general, I don't go to the North End enough that I go there and want to have pizza however I'm sure there must be some other places that serve good pizza.

Anyway, that is a quick round-up. I look forward to hearing from you all about your favorite pizza place.

Halloumi?

I had a cheese dish on Mykonos that was quite delicious. These cheese itself was similar to cheese curd that I used to get as a kid though the pieces were pretty large and flat unlike the cheese curd I've had before. The cheese was grilled and then drizzled in a balsamic reduction. BTW, it didn't taste anything like feta cheese -- it disn't have either a sour or bitter taste, just a bit of sweetness and squeekiness.

Buffalo Mozzarella

In Italy they have the most amazing mozzarella which they call Mozzarella di Bufala Campana. No, its not made in Buffalo NY, its made from a kind of buffalo they have in the region.

The times I had it it was wonderful. It has a very high moisture content such that when you touched it with your fork to cut it, juice would come out -- and after the pressure is let up, it would get reabsorbed. I know, eating a sponge doesn't sound so good, but the texture is quite nice and the flavor is much better than cow's milk mozzarella, definitely a little saltier at least. You'd expect as much since it comes in a bag with lots of liquid when you buy it.

The two classic dishes are:
1) With tomatoes, basil leaves, balsamic vinegar (and olive oil)
2) With prosciutto

Both are easy to make when you have a date over to your house.

My friend John used some pesto instead of the basil leaves and that was a great variation.