It’s not on purpose — though I am something of a neurotically focus-pulling autonarrating main character myself — but there’s no way to say this without sounding like I’m trying to do a Carrie Bradshaw voice-over, so you’ll have to both go with it and trust me that it was simply a coincidentally-cadenced train of thought and not me doing a bit; and I’m also going to put a full stop here before I articulate that thought so we don’t all pass out from lack of opportunity to pause for a breath. So — with another deep breath — if the truism holds that soups and stews taste better the next day, and if it’s also true that I made this Caramelised Onion and Butter Bean Soup and it tasted better the next day, and even more glorious the next day, and positively rapturous the day after that— I couldn’t help but wonder, am I ever meant to eat this soup?

By day 3 both my patience and my remaining soup had run out so I never got to see what transportative ecstasy might lie around the corner, but even the difference between day one and two was astonishing — the cognac bloomed, the garlic rose like the sun, and the bean-thickened broth grew more velvety and savoury, evoking all kinds of unrelated foodstuffs, from champagne to sausage rolls. And the onions’ sweetness rippled further. Not bad for a monumentally simple recipe, ingredients-wise. Now, when I say “caramelised” onion, it’s something of a cheat’s approach — adding a splash of water to the chopped onions forces them to wilt and soften, which hastens you to the point of caramelisation but would probably raise a sneer from chefs of any qualification level. I also give it a helping hand, either in the form of fudgy brown sugar or smoky maple syrup, and have no qualms about it. If I’m going to urge you wait overnight before you eat this soup I can at least hurry up the method.

A bowl of floating beans is never going to suggest gold-plated garish luxury — nor would I want it to — but it is nonetheless remarkable how a couple of onions and a couple of cans of bottom-shelf beans can be utterly transformed. The double-bean presence is on purpose: the first tin provides heft and literal bean presence, the second tin, pureed smoothly, provides a lightly creamy backdrop for the whole beans and collapsed onions to bob around in. The pumpkin seeds, glittering with chilli flakes and butter, are not exactly necessary — especially if you want a more soothingly un-crunchy soup prospect ahead of you — but their fiery contrast of texture and flavour are most welcome to me, that’s if I can manage to not eat them all as I make the soup itself.

As with most soups of this nature, you can go big and go home simultaneously, for example, you might consider: toasted fennel seeds; herb oil; pesto; sliced red chilli; bubbling grilled cheese croutons; cannellini beans or navy beans instead of butter beans; red onions or shallots instead of regular onions; finely chopped carrots and celery sweated down with the onions — and so on, and so on.

If you’re entering your soup chapter currently, and if you’re idly curious at how many ways one can interpret the concept of a legume-based potage, you might also consider my recipes for Four Bean Soup with Kewpie Aioli; Chilled Cannellini Bean Soup with Basil Spinach Oil; and Roasted Garlic Lentil Soup.

Caramelised Onion Butter Bean Soup with Chilli Butter Pumpkin Seeds

Two onions, two cans of beans, not much else and you have a fine and calmly delicious meal; if you can manage to wait overnight and reheat it, you’ve got something absolutely pinging with incredibleness on your hands. I take a shortcut with the onions but you don’t lose anything as far as sweet, mellow caramelised flavour goes; if you want to take the long way round though, be my guest. Recipe by myself.

• 70g pumpkin seeds
• 1 teaspoon gochugaru, or chilli flakes (and quantity) of your choice)
• 75g butter
• 2 large onions
• 6 cloves garlic
• 2 tablespoons cognac
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar or maple syrup
• 2 x 400g tins butter beans
• 1L chicken stock
• Salt and white pepper, to taste

1: Toast the 70g pumpkin seeds in a wide saucepan until warmed and fragrant and lightly changing colour; tip into a heatproof bowl and stir in the teaspoon of gochugaru. Slice about 25g from the 75g butter and melt it briskly in the same pan, once it’s sizzling a little, carefully pour it over the pumpkin seeds. Remove the pan from the heat, but don’t wash it.

2: Peel and slice the two onions as finely as you can manage. Peel and roughly chop the six garlic cloves. Heat another 25g butter (you should have 25g remaining, roughly) in the same pan as before and tip in the sliced onion. Sprinkle with salt and splash with a few tablespoons of water (or a little of the prepared chicken stock) which will help to rapidly soften the onions.

3: Once the onions have collapsed down, add in the two tablespoons of cognac and let it bubble up, followed by the tablespoon of brown sugar or maple syrup and the remaining 25g butter. Keep cooking the onions, stirring occasionally, until they appear caramelised, browned, and very, very soft.

4: Drain – no need to rinse – one of the cans of beans and stir it into the pan of onions, along with the chopped six cloves of garlic, turning down the heat to the low end of medium. Drain the other can of beans and puree in a blender with 250ml of the chicken stock. Pour this mixture into the pan, along with the remaining 750ml chicken stock. Let this simmer, stirring now and then, for about ten minutes. Some of the un-blended beans will collapse into the broth, this is fine.

5: Divide between two shallow bowls, season to taste, and scatter over the reserved pumpkin seeds. Or, refrigerate and reheat gently the next day, at which point it will taste significantly better. And if you’re definitely sure you won’t eat it till the next day, I’d leave the pumpkin seed step till the following day, too.

Serves two.

Note: If you don’t want to commit to a bottle of cognac, I recommend getting one of those little hotel minibar-sized bottles that liquor stores always keep behind the counter; or you could use dry vermouth or just leave it out; perhaps replacing with a scant spoonful of miso paste stirred in off the heat once the soup has finished simmering.

I’ve made this with both stock and plain water — if you’ve only got the latter then you’ll definitely want to add plenty of salt, and leave it a day before reheating and eating. It’s still great on day one, but by day two you wouldn’t even guess that mere water was carrying the entire production.

music lately:

Hurry On Home by Sleater-Kinney, who I saw live last week, when they waterblasted us with the Yellowjackets-esque acapella harmonies at the start of this I immediately started crying.

Voices Carry by Til Tuesday; I hadn’t thought about this song in a while but it features prominently in the odd and exquisite film What Happened Was, which I was able to see on a big screen for the first time last week at the Hollywood Cinema and it really captures the film’s painful sincere ache perfectly.

Happiness, from Sondheim’s musical Passion, as performed in 2005 by six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald and Michael Cerveris (who has, fair dues, won two Tonys himself), it’s by no means one of Sondheim’s flashiest numbers but as ever his lyrics like “unhappiness can be seductive” create fissures that yawn into chasms requiring large-scale infrastructure projects to return to their former usability.

Movies, by Alien Ant Farm. This is so melodramatic that it wouldn’t take too much rearrangement for it to be, say, an Angelo Badalamenti song — can you not imagine Julee Cruise cooing, and just like the movies/we play out our last scene. Even so, the boisterous guitar riffs somehow add to the histrionics as much as a string quartet would; perhaps some of this is from a being-there-first-time-around perspective but: it’s an excellent song regardless!

PS: As I’ve said previously, ReliefAid’s Gaza Appeal is doing important work despite setbacks and roadblocks and if you’re looking for relief effort to support, I suggest them as a starting point.