French Onion Soup. yum!

I love a recipe that takes a handful of ingredients and converts them into a spectacular dish. This is the case with todays essay. Here is a list of what you’ll need.

Onions

Stock

Bread

Cheese

Booze

Olive Oil

Seasoning

These seven ingredients, most of which are sitting in your pantry, is all you need to make French Onion Soup.

You may ask, “How do you convert these six ingredients into awesomeness?” Technique!

Technique is the key and the key technique is caramelization. Caramelization is the transformation of proteins and sugars into tasty compounds. Let’s get on with the recipe and I will expand upon this technique as I go.

French Onion Soup

4 Lb Sweet Onions, About 6 medium orbs. (Vidalias would be great!)

2 Qt Stock, I used a combination of chicken and beef.

1 cup Booze. Sherry, Cognac, Madeira or just a sweet white wine.

Seasonings: Salt, Pepper, thyme, Worcestershire sauce, and vinegar (I used pear but balsamic, apple cider or even malt would work)

Cheese, the choices are endless. I like a combination of a sharp flavorful cheese with an easy melting cheese. This time I used Emmentaler and provolone. You could also use Gruyere, grana padano, asiago, parmesan, Jarlsberg or any combination of these would work. Do not feel limited to just these cheeses; just about any will work but stay away from those individually wrapped slices of processed oil.

Croutons, we will need croutons. Make these out of just about any bread you would like. Use good bread. Stay away from those pre-sliced, mass-produced, super soft, bland slices of H – E double hockey sticks. I like a nice baguette.

The only real prep that needs to be done is to cut up the onions. In the video below I show a technique called Frenching an onion.

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Start by trimming off the ends of the onion. Be sure to completely remove the core. Then cut the onions in half. Now, peel the onions.

Set the onion cut side down on the cutting board and slice off strips until you have gone through the whole half. Continue with the other half and the remainder of the onions.

Move the onions to a pan with a large surface area. A cast iron skillet works great. Place the pan on the stovetop over medium high heat. Add a little olive oil, salt and pepper. Stir the onions frequently and when you get a build up of oniony goodness sticking to the pan deglaze with a little water or white wine. Cook the onions until they are dark brown. Do not rush this step. A good caramelization will add to the sweetness and richness of the soup.

Transfer the onions to a soup pot and place the skillet back on the stovetop over high heat. Let the pan get good and hot then turn off the flame and deglaze the pan with the booze. Be careful with spirits with a high alcohol content, there will probably be a flare up as the alcohol ignites. Don’t panic. If the flame is too high have a lid ready to place on the pan to put out the flames. (A fire extinguisher would be a nice thing to have if say, the cabinets catch fire… you do know the phone number for 911 right?)

Let this liquid reduce while you scrape all the tasty bits off the pan surface. Add the liquid to the onions when you have reduced by half. Add the stock also and bring the soup to a simmer.

This is a good time to add on to the foundation of flavor we built with the caramelization and deglazing processes. The soup will need salt and pepper. I like to add a ¼ cup of Worcestershire sauce. Let this simmer for an hour.

Lets turn our attention to the croutons. Again I like a small diameter baguette. This way I can adjust the amount of cheesy toasty goodness to the diners’ preference.

I first slice the baguette thin. About a quarter to a third of an inch is nice. Drizzle on some olive oil. Here is where you want to use fairly good oil. Sprinkle the bread with salt and pepper and toast these in a 400° oven for about 12 to 15

minutes. I like mine fairly crisp with just a little golden brown showing.

For another variation watch here:

Please note: my oven is twice the age of my son who is high school sophomore. I started checking on my croutons after about 9 minutes!

At this point if you have sliced cheese you are ready for final assembly. If not, start grating!

When you are about 5 minutes from service turn on your broiler. Check the soup one last time for seasoning. I like to add a tablespoon of fresh chopped thyme and a couple of ounces of vinegar.

Get a sheet pan and place the crocks on the pan. This will aid in retrieval from the broiler.

Ladle the soup into the crocks, (any heat proof vessel with work) float as many croutons on the soup as you like, and then layer on the cheese. Place them under the broiler until the cheese melts and starts to turn brown.

Serve this to your adoring fans. Let them write stories and sing songs about your awesomeness. But… remember the awesome scale goes from 0 to Terry here! Just Sayin’!

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~T