Okay! So this post is a long time in the making as I actually cooked this a few months ago, but its a personal favorite! French Onion Soup! This rich and surprisingly easy to make soup will make an 8 portion pot of goodness that will remain delicious all week. A little broiler action at the end, and you get a delicious, easy meal!
You’ll need:
- 4-6 Large Yellow Onions, roughly chopped
- 4-5 Large Cloves of Garlic, diced up
- Lots of fresh thyme
- Red wine
- 2 -3 Quarts Beef broth (if there was ever a time to get the slightly more expensive, better tasting variety, this is it!)
- A baguette!
- Gruyere cheese
- BUTTER (Seriously, a LOT of butter. This is the ingredient that makes or breaks the dish. No, I don’t have a specific quantity in mind, just keep adding it incrementally until you accomplish what you want to with the soup.)
- Fresh ground pepper
Most folks that have talked food with me know that I am a huge fan of soups. I tend to be a bit lazy about my cooking and prefer the do it over the course of the day rather than trying to throw stuff together all at once. This soup lends itself well to this, but you CAN throw it together quickly (in about an hour to an hour and a half). I took much of the afternoon to allow my pot of soup develop flavor and to fix the butter debacle… More on this later.
SO HOW DO YOU MAKE IT?
1. Start cooking those onions! Medium or medium high heat, stirring regularly. You don’t want them browned up too much, just cooked through a little bit. Add the garlic once it starts to look like its getting close! Don’t add the garlic too early or it will burn! Also throw some butter in at this stage, enough to create a small amount of melted goodness in the pot. Approximately half a stick? Its up to you, you’ll definitely need more later!
2. Once you feel good about the onion mix, its time to start pounding flavor into the pot. First, add a healthy portion of red wine! About half a bottle of dry red wine should be enough, definitely a minimum of 1-1.5 cups. This sweetens up the soup at the end, if that seems like a lot of wine…Well…it is! It unusual to use large volumes of red wine in most recipes, but here, its important to! The trick with cooking with red wine is that you really have to give it time on with direct heat. Red wine benefits from being cooked thoroughly and reduced a bit. Failing to let the wine reduce and sweeten up before adding more liquids will leave your soup tasting a little TOO much like the wine. At this point, also throw in your fresh thyme. It can simmer with the wine, butter and onion mix to make a delicious base! And don’t forget fresh pepper to give it even more depth!
3. Once you are psyched about the state of your base, you can start thinking about turning it into a proper pot of soup. French Onion Soups traditionally uses beef stock as its main liquid component, and that’s exactly what I did here! When I cook soup, I go for a giant portion so we can eat well all week, so I used a whopping 2.5 quarts of broth. People who don’t want to completely dilute their ingredients (like I did) might want to start smaller. You should use only enough to barely cover the solids!
4. Now…the butter debacle… We started this project with WAY TOO LITTLE butter. Seriously, don’t even bother with making this large amount of soup unless you have a couple of full sticks to dedicate to the project. When I cooked it, I couldn’t figure out why the heck my soup just refused to taste like proper French Onion Soup…I mean, it was good, it just lacked that silky savory mouthfeel and that awesome characteristic flavor. So, to fix my pot of soup, I went to the convenience store, grabbed some butter and then started throwing in 1/4 stick chunks to taste until it had that flavor I was looking for. To be honest, I don’t think I even know how much I used! (…It was enough to surprise even Julia Child…but hey! That’s French cooking for you!)
5. So this is the stage where you can put the lid on a walk away… If you have homework to do, are waiting on family to get home, or whatever else the case may be, its pretty difficult to wreck this soup once you get to this stage. So feel free to walk away. You SHOULD walk away with the pot on a simmer for at least a few minutes. With soups, the ingredients like to get to know one another, and that takes time.
6. When you are ready to put this delicious mixture into a bowl, its time to get your bread and cheese ready. French Onion Soup traditionally uses either one big chunk of bread or a bunch of smaller croutons topped with cheese. HA! There is a superior way to plate this dish up that is more delicious and holds together without either soaking up all the liquid or turning into a soggy bread mess. Cut your baguette into slices and then cut those in half. These then become like super croutons that are the perfect cheese-soup intermediary. Just look at the pictures, and you’ll see what I mean. THEN BROIL THOSE BAD BOYS! You’ll know its done when the cheese is bubbly and browning…
This meal is an absolute showstopper, and its really good too! If you’re looking for the ultimate multitasking meal to cook that will knock the socks off your dinner partner, this is the one! A favorite of both Tia and I…
~ Let us know if you try it ~
Savory Sweet Bitters 