french onion soup

image courtesy of Sony Pictures

French Onion Soup is something that was introduced to me by my mother. It's a wonder I ever tried it in the first place, I was probably about 9 years old, and I can't imagine many nine-year-olds wanting to try a soup with bread and cheese inside, but luckily I've always been a fairly adventurous eater. I wanted to learn to make my own after being inspired by the complicated French dishes in Julie & Julia, so I set out to learn how to make this soup. It is definitely more complicated than what I usually cook, but I promise that it's not as hard as it looks, and it really is VERY hard to mess up. And since it's not really my recipe (although I did make some modifications that I believe improved it), I can say without bias that it is the BEST ... by FAR the best French Onion Soup I've ever had!


The recipe is divided into three parts: The broth, the onions, and the bread/cheese topping.

The Broth:

1 32oz. carton of Wolfgang Puck's Organic Beef Flavored Broth: I have tried one or two other types of broth and it didn't taste at all as good as it did when I used ole Wolfgang's, so do try to get this specific type if at all possible. They have it at Ralph's, or "Kroger" for those in the south.
1/3 cup of dry white wine. I use "two buck Chuck" Chardonnay and it works just fine.
one bay leaf
hearty pinch of dried parsely flakes
a few sprinkes of ground thyme
1/2 tablespoon of white vinegar
1/2 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon of minced garlic

Simply dump all of these ingredients into a medium-sized pot and cook over low to medium heat for at least 20 minutes. It takes about 45 minutes to finish the recipe out from here, and I usually just let it cook the entire time, stirring occasionally.

The Onions:

This is the part that will really make you feel like quite the Julia Child in training ... caramelizing the onions. If you don't know about the heaven that is caramelized onions, you are in for a treat.

4 small yellow onions, or 3 large yellow onions: slice these as thinly as you can. This will save you lots of cooking-down time later!
4 tablespoons of butter (I never said it was a healthy recipe)
Salt

After you've sliced up your onions, you may want to measure to make sure you have enough. The sliced onions should be about 1 1/2 quarts. Put the butter in a large pan, preferably cast-iron if you have one, and sprinkle with salt. It's important to add the salt now because it helps create the chemical reaction that turns the onions into their syrupy texture, or so I read. Once the butter is melted, add the onions, and stir them in so that they are all covered in butter on both sides.


It should look like this picture above. Now comes the tedious part. You have to stand there and stir ... and stir ... and stir ... for about 30 to 45 minutes. If I'm cooking by myself I usually bring my laptop into the kitchen with me and watch a movie while I stir. It helps pass the time! In fact, the first time I made this, I brought my laptop to the kitchen and turned on The Holiday. I paused it when I was done cooking, and the next time I made this soup I watched some more. Now it's become my official French Onion Soup-Making movie. I still have about 30 minutes left to watch, so I guess I need to make this again soon so I can finish it:) I'll probably never be able to watch that movie again without being afflicted with a terrible craving for caramelized onions.

Eventually the onions will cook down to a gooey, syrupy texture. I sprinkle them with salt every 10 minutes or so and that seems to speed up the process. Just do a taste test before you add more salt to make sure they aren't too salty. You'll be tempted to turn up the heat on the stove to get it over with, but don't! Once they burn or get slightly tough, they can't caramelize anymore. Just be patient and cook over a low to medium heat.


It may feel like it's never going to happen, but eventually they will look like this. And yes, that's all that's left of them! I didn't take any onions out before taking this picture:) You can click on the picture to get a closer look of what they should end up looking like.

The Cheese and Bread:

Several slices of French Bread, or a Sour Dough Baguette
Gruyere Cheese

Turn the heat off of your onions and the broth, and put a lid on the broth to keep it warm. Slice up the bread so that it will fit into your ramekin (no thicker than an inch), then pop it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 7 minutes. Slice up the cheese into thin slices.


Now it's time to put it all together! Put one or two spoonfuls of the onions into the bottom of the ramekin, pour the broth over it until it's about 2/3 full, then put the slices of bread on top of that. Drape the cheese over the bread so that it covers the top, then pop into the broiler for 5 minutes. The cheese should be melted and bubbling when it's done. Once you take it out of the broiler, sprinkle the top with paprika, and serve! It's seriously delicious, and you can serve it with all that Chardonnay you have left over:)

Don't worry about coming up with side dishes to accompany it, this soup is extremely filling, even to my 6'2'' husband. It should serve about 4 people, but it can be doubled easily.

Bon appetit!