Creamy and dreamy soup with caramelized onions and chestnut spread (kosher, vegan, gluten-free)

Creamy soup with caramelized onions and chestnut spread only requires a few ingredients but the result is so dreamy!

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Aftter feasting on Sweden it was time for home-coming and bitter return to the reality where I'm expected to cook my own food. Motivation was close to zero, but so (after all the culinary conquests) so was the balance of my bank account. 

The situation wasn't made any better by the fact that by the time my broken heart finally allowed me to keep any food down, I had happily outsourced the catering and kept wolting what ever I needed to stay alive, directly to my bed.

The darker side of life as a food blogger, vol. 143

When I finally managed to convince myself to at least try and pick myself up, it felt as if I'd never even held a ladle  - let alone a camera. Oh, how quickly the mighty fall indeed.

Luckily sometimes cheap and easy mean delicious, too, as this creamy soup with caramelized onion and chestnut spread prove. 3 ingredients I found in the fridge and... well, that's it, really. 

What really made it sing, though, was a tube of crème de marrons (chestnut spread) that I brough back from my trip. It lends the soup gentle sweetness and richness, but in case you don't have one on hand, no problem. In that case I'd probably add a bit of brown sugar (a spoonful of unsweetened peanut butter might do the trick, too!)

It's impossible to find an ingredient as cheap as onion - a kilo will set you back less than €1. But toss it into a pot to caramelize for an hour and whoah - you've got yourself such fantastic, sweet and savoury depth of flavours you couldn't ask for more. 

While cheap and cheerful, there is certain je ne sais quo in this  - you could easily serve it as a starter at a little finer function, too. 

Serves 3-4

Creamy soup with caramelized onions and chestnut spread:

roughly 1,1 kg onion (after peeling and trimming you're left with 1 kg)

2 tbsp butter (or oil) 

1/2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

3 tbsp finely chopped fresh thyme (or 1,5 tbsp dried)

7,5 dl vegetable stock

1 tube (78 g) chestnut spread (crème de marrons)

3/4 tsp salt

3/4 tsp black pepper

2 dl couble cream, loosely whipped (or a vegan substitute such as soy cream)

to serve:

roasted onion flakes, thyme (or for a gluten-free alternative: roasted, gently salted seeds)

Peel the onions, trim off the stems and slice finely.

Heat butter (or oil)in a large pot or pan and add the onions. Leave to caramelize over medium heat for about an hour, stirring every 10 minutes or so and checking, whether there's still enough liquid (and that the heat's not too high).

If it starts to seem like they're about to burn, lower the heat and/or add a small splash of stock.

One they're soft and caramelized to beautiful mahogany colour, add thyme and balsamico and stir, scraping off all the bits in the bottomof the pan, too. 

Blizz the onions together with vegetable stock and (if using) the chestnut spread. Check the taste and season as needed. 

Fold in the cream, sprinkle the crunchy onion flakes on top and serve.

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