Has anyone tried crispy fried onion, the sort you get in a packet ? The OH bought a large packet in the summer on a whim and we haven’t opened them yet. Seems like they may work in a soup, but not sure. Any other good uses ?
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Not had the packet variety… check the “best before” date and if it’s getting close, why not give 'em a whirl… ??
You could always take a small bowl of hot soup, sprinkle some cf onion… see what it tastes like… if it doesn’t work, you’ve not wasted a large bowl of soup 
EDIT: Other good uses: sprinkled on a plate of salad… (we sprinkle chopped nuts of various sorts… so why not cfOnion… )
Or… Think of cfOnion as a seasoning, sprinkle over whatever dish you’ve just served up…
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Good sprinkled on salads for a bit of a difference or even cheese on toast etc. They go soggy when they get damp!
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I’m not the greatest fan of garlic, neither is my wife.
I will cook with it but fry garlic and I’m out of the building as it smells like burning rubber to me, it’s on par with cooking tripe, disgusting 
If you make stock from bones you get at the butcher’s it is better if you roast them first, then if you add ginger galangal onion (all burnt a bit on the gas) and some cloves and star anise and a cinnamon stick too you have the makings of a lovely pho 
Confit garlic done in the oven when roasting things, because the cloves are small they lie in the fat/juices and get confit, SO delicious. As I had hordes of children to feed I got through a lot of garlic, they eat it like sweets, just like black fermented garlic.
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I used to love garlic until I had the two strokes, the smell just makes me want to heave now.
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Gosh… that’s rotten
I thought it was bad enough when part of my sense of smell just went for a stroll some years ago…
Allergy to chocolate was another , that was a real blow and not good when your in France, especially when eating out desert wise 
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Poor you, that’s such a weird unlucky side-effect and at the same time really fascinating.
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I use a Polish version (Cebulka) and they’re great where you need a crispy pre-cooked onion but don’t really want to do the deep-frying thing. I put them on steaks while they’re still in the pan, use them with Byriani, put them in meatballs and a bunch of other similar things.
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Out of interest, are you ‘blitzing’ your soups with a hand-held blender that you put into the cooking pot, or are you using an upright blender with a jug on top?
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a handheld blitzer… stuffed into the hot pot
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We do the same here, we get them either back in the UK or in the international aisle in Auchan.
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I use a stick blender. You can do it in the pan you cook it in then. Just have to be careful about boiling splashback 
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We got them in an Indian supermarket in Toulouse, so Biryani sounds right. I haven’t done one in a good while so it’ll be biryani next 
Edit: After 5 years of ordering my spices online as searching the area online didn’t find anything, whilst wandering round Toulouse near the indoor market, I found not one, or two, but three Indian supermarkets with everything one might need for cooking a real curry.
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Handheld blitzer as food processor is small and leaks if too much liquid in it. I have a liquidizer attachment to the food mixer but always forget about it until afterwards. Lidl do them every so often for something you might not use every day for a reasonable price.
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Me three
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Me four. And if I’m feeling really posh and not in a rush then put it through the tamis.
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Using a blender with soups is something I rarely do apart from lentil soup, we prefer chunky soup rather than the type I will get when I am in a home with no teeth in my dottage 
We don’t completely liquidise the soup as we do like it chunky. Just a quick few seconds helps to thicken the soup without reducing it to a paste. We also don’t blitz the Tuscan Bean soup at all as it’s thick enough as it is. The Tuscan Bean soup is done in the slow cooker. Kidney, Borlotti, Pinto and White Haricot beans soaked 24 hours and then pre-cooked for just 10 minutes on the hob before putting into the slow cooker. Done with lamb stock from bones and whatever bits of meat are left from the joint.
Edit : Just realised I made it sound like that’s all that goes into the soup. There’s a lot more besides.
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