What's for dinner? French onion soup! This is such a tasty soup, easy to make and makes a great winter night meal. My recipe has always been pretty basic so, I thought I do a little reading through my various cook books to see what the pros do. Sir Dean & Sir Deluca had the best recipe I think but, I didn't want to do exactly what they did--instead, I just let them influence me a bit.
I really don't like a French onion soup that is too sweet. It will be a little sweet due to the caramelized onions but, I think the natural sugars in the onion are enough and no added sugar is necessary. In addition to adding sugar, Dean & Deluca also use Cognac in their soup (I bet that's good!) but I didn't have any of that on hand so I added a splash of very dry vermouth instead.
You really should give this soup a try--I'm a major soup lover and this is definitely in my top 5!
French Onion Soup
4-6 medium onions (I like to use sweet onions but yellow onions work well too)
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) of unsalted butter
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp flour
2 tbsp very dry vermouth
4 c hot beef broth
1/2 tsp kosher salt + a pinch for the croutons
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
~2 1/2 c homemade croutons (see recipe below)
8 oz Gruyere cheese, coarsely grated (or any other form of a Swiss cheese)
To start, peel and slice the onions into 1/4-1/2 inch slices. You should have a lot of onions (about 6 cups all sliced up). Put 2 tbsp of olive oil and the butter in a heavy bottomed soup pot (I really like to use my enamel coated cast iron dutch oven). Once the butter is melted in the oil and is good and hot, add your onion slices to the pot. Cook the onions down for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
While the onions are cooking, make your croutons. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. While it's preheating, cut a few slices from a loaf of good, crusty bread and then cut the slices into large cubes. Toss the cubes with your remaining 1 tbsp of olive oil and a pinch of kosher salt, then spread out into an even layer on a baking sheet. Bake the croutons for about 10 minutes or until crunchy and lightly golden brown. When the croutons are done baking, remove from the oven and set aside.
After about 20 minutes your onions should be cooked way down and be fairly translucent. But, they won't yet be caramelized so, you'll need to keep cooking them for about another 20 minutes. As the liquid released from the onions evaporates, you need to stir them more frequently so that they become a rich brown in color and evenly caramelized but do not burn. Watch the onions closely, DON'T let them burn.
About half-way through cooking the onions down.
Here are the onions after they've cooked about another 15-20 minutes-getting nice and golden and sweet! Time to add in the flour--sprinkle your tablespoon of flour over the onions and cook for another 2-3 minutes, stirring often. You want to cook out the raw flour taste but still be careful not to burn the onions.
After cooking the flour with the onions for a few minutes, add the 2 tbsp vermouth and try to scrape up the bits from the bottom of the pan. Next add in the beef broth, salt & pepper. Bring the soup to a boil then lower the heat to a simmer and cook with the lid on the pot (but slightly ajar) for about 30 minutes. While this is cooking, preheat your oven broiler.
After simmering for about 30 minutes, taste the soup and add salt and pepper to your liking. Then distribute the soup equally between four oven safe bowls....
Top with your delicious homemade croutons...
Then top with a generous helping of the grated Gruyere...
Place your oven safe bowls on a baking sheet then cook under the preheated broiler until the cheese is totally melted, bubbly and starting to brown. Remove from the oven and serve!
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