French Onion Soup

Onions cooked down for an hour and a half before any liquid goes near them, with the bread floated rather than submerged.

Not vegetarian — contains beef stock, gruyère whose rennet the source does not name.

Ingredients

• 1.5 kg onions, sliced thin
• 60 g butter
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 2 tablespoons plain flour
• 200 ml dry white wine
• 1.5 litres good beef stock
• 2 bay leaves
• a few thyme sprigs
• 1 tablespoon sherry or brandy
• 6 thick slices baguette, as on its own page
• 200 g gruyère, grated
• salt and pepper

Method

1. AN HOUR AND A HALF ON THE ONIONS BEFORE ANY LIQUID. Not twenty minutes, not forty. A kilo and a half of onions has to go from white, through gold, to a deep even brown, and that is where the entire flavour of the soup comes from -- there is nothing else in it. Stock added to pale onions gives onion-flavoured stock, which is a perfectly nice thing and is not this.
2. THEY ARE NOT HURRIED WITH HIGH HEAT. Fierce heat browns the edges while the middle stays raw and some pieces burn, and burnt onion is bitter through the whole pot. Medium-low, stirred every ten minutes, scraping the brown off the base each time.
3. THE BREAD FLOATS AND IS NOT SUBMERGED. A slice pushed under the soup disintegrates; laid on top, it stays as a raft for the cheese and goes soft underneath while staying firm above. Toast it first so it has something to resist with.
4. Butter and oil in a wide heavy pan. Onions in with the sugar and a good pinch of salt.
5. Covered for the first 15 minutes so they soften and give up water.
6. Lid off and cooked over a medium-low heat 1 hour 15 minutes, stirred every 10 minutes. They will reduce to about a fifth and go deep brown and jammy.
7. Flour stirred in, 2 minutes.
8. Wine poured in and bubbled hard, scraping everything off the base.
9. Stock, bay and thyme in. Simmered 30 minutes. Seasoned.
10. The sherry or brandy stirred in off the heat.
11. Bread toasted on both sides.
12. Soup ladled into ovenproof bowls, a slice of toast floated on each, and the gruyère piled on top and over the rim of the bowl, which is where the best bit comes from.
13. Under a hot grill until the cheese is molten and blistered. Served immediately, with a warning that the bowl is as hot as the soup.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under France · All recipes