An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace

by Tamar Adler

Some vegetables are persistently underestimated. If you ever find yourself longing to cook a good vegetable but there is none in sight, get a deep pot and dig eight to ten plain, big, dusty onions from your pantry, or the cold, dark onion bin at your nearest store. Then caramelize them. Cut off their tops, then cut them in half through their roots, then lengthwise into slices about a quarter-inch thick. Warm three tablespoons of butter and three tablespoons of olive oil in a big pot. When the butter is melted, add the mountain of onions, a small pinch of sugar, a big pinch of salt, and a branch of fresh thyme, and stir it all well. Cook the onions over medium-low heat, stirring them occasionally. Add occasional sprinkles of water if the onions begin to stick. If they start to sizzle, lower the heat and cover the pot, then uncover it when the cooking has slowed. This will take forty-five minutes to an hour, and the whole mass will look soggy and unconvincing until right before the onions are done, at which point they melt completely into a golden jam and all of their sugars come out to toast. Now you have a perfect vegetable base for a series of dishes. If it’s cold out, make soup. Our expectations of onion soup are as dingy as our expectations of onions themselves. There is no better varnishing of either than the fine and heady humbleness of this one. Onion soup 2 cups caramelized onions 1 tablespoon olive oil, plus more for the bread 1 tablespoon butter 1/4 cup water 1 te...