This isn't French onion soup. French onion soup has two main ingredients: onions and beef bullion. Take out the beef bullion and what have you got left? By the time you put enough vegetarian ingredients in to make a passable soup, it's hardly going to be French onion, is it? Nevertheless, if you wanted a vegetarian French onion soup recipe, this is probably the kind of thing you would find wherever you looked. Let's not be too pedantic then, and concede that if there is such a thing as a vegetarian French onion soup recipe, this could be one version.
When you peel the onions for this recipe, save two or three large pieces of brown skin. Adding these to the soup gives it a lovely golden colour, but you should lift them out before you serve the soup. That's why I suggest large pieces.
Ingredients
3 onions
2 litres of water
1 dessert spoon of flour
1 dessert spoon of soy sauce
1 teaspoon of sugar
1 bay leaf
A pinch of anise seeds
A few black peppercorns
2 vegetable stock cubes
Olive oil
(a couple of sprigs of fresh parsley for garnish if you have any)
Put the water in a pot with the bits of onion skin and set it
to boil. Cut the peeled onions in half and slice the halves thinly. Fry the
onion gently, adding the crushed aniseeds and peppercorns somewhere along the
line. When the onions are turning a nice golden colour, add the flour and stir
for a minute or two to cook it. Add the contents of the frying pan to the boiling
water along with all the other ingredients and simmer for fifteen to twenty
minutes. Find the bits of onion skin and take them out and add some chopped
parsley just before serving.