Soupe au Fromage

A soup layered like a lasagne and baked rather than stirred, so it comes out of the oven in slices.

Chicken. Not vegetarian — contains cantal whose rennet the source does not name, chicken.

Ingredients

• 1 small green cabbage, shredded
• 2 onions, sliced
• 60 g butter
• 1.2 litres chicken or vegetable stock
• 400 g stale country bread, thinly sliced
• 400 g cantal or tomme, thinly sliced
• 150 ml double cream
• a grating of nutmeg
• salt and pepper

Method

1. IT IS LAYERED LIKE A LASAGNE AND BAKED, NOT STIRRED. Bread, cabbage, cheese, bread, cabbage, cheese, and the stock poured down the side. An hour in the oven and it comes out set firm enough to cut in slices -- which is what makes it this dish rather than a cheese soup with bread in it. Stirred together at any point it collapses into exactly that, and there is no reassembling it.
2. SO THE STOCK IS POURED DOWN THE SIDE OF THE DISH, not over the top. Poured over, it washes the cheese off the top layer and floats the bread out of position.
3. AND IT COMES ONLY THREE QUARTERS OF THE WAY UP. The top layer must stay above the liquid so it browns and crusts. Covered, it boils pale and the dish has no top.
4. STALE BREAD, SLICED THIN. Fresh bread is already full of water, turns to paste and the layers merge. Two or three days old is right.
5. THE CABBAGE IS SWEATED FIRST BUT NOT COOKED THROUGH. Ten minutes in butter, so it has given up some water and softened; it finishes in the oven. Raw, it stays squeaky and keeps the layers apart.
6. Butter in a wide pan. Onions softened 10 minutes until golden.
7. The cabbage added with a good pinch of salt and sweated, covered, 10 MINUTES until wilted but still with some bite. Nutmeg and pepper.
8. The cream stirred through it off the heat.
9. A deep ovenproof dish buttered.
10. LAYERED: a layer of bread slices, then a third of the cabbage, then a third of the cheese.
11. Repeated twice more, finishing with cheese on top.
12. The stock poured gently DOWN THE SIDE of the dish, to come about three quarters of the way up. The top layer left proud of it.
13. Baked UNCOVERED at 180C for 1 HOUR, until the top is deep brown and blistered and the sides are bubbling.
14. RESTED 15 MINUTES, which is what lets it set. Cut in wedges and lifted out with a spatula, not ladled.

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