“M” and I have a fun weekend planned. She got some exciting news and to celebrate I thought it would be nice to treat her to a couple of her favorite meals. First off, we will be having Maryland style crab cakes with a lemon aioli, and French Onion Soup. Tomorrow we will be having grilled steaks served “Oscar” style. More on those as they come, but this post will only focus on the French Onion Soup.
French Onion Soup is a traditional French soup containing caramelized onions and beef broth. Thinly sliced onions are caramelized until sweet and deglazed with brandy or sherry. Often times, the soup is topped with a crisp crouton and gruyere cheese, then is toasted until the cheese is melted and beginning to brown. In this post I will walk you through this traditional, and very simple recipe.
Ingredients
- 5 medium yellow onions, julienne
- 5 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 cups sherry wine
- 2 quarts beef stock/broth
- 1 teaspoon beef base (optional)
- 1 large bay leaf
- 5 sprigs fresh thyme
- 2 Tablespoons canola oil
- salt and pepper, to taste
As with most recipes, the first step is to prep your ingredients. Julienne cut your onions, and mince your garlic. Heat a large pot over high heat, add your canola oil. If the pan is hot enough the oil will “shimmer”, if it is not hot enough the oil will not look any different. Conversely if your pan is too hot, the oil will immediately begin to smoke. We do not want to have smoking oil. We want to have the oil shimmer. Once your oil is shimmering, add your onions followed by your garlic. Saute your vegetables while stirring continuously. After a couple minutes the onions will begin to release some liquid. Continue on high heat until the water has evaporated and you begin to see some color forming on the bottom of the pan. Lower your heat to medium-high, and continue to stir. This is the time consuming part of the recipe. Your goal here is to caramelize or brown the onions without burning them. Turning them too dark will make your soup bitter, and that’s a big “no no”. Once your onions are nice and brown, add your sherry wine to deglaze the pan. Be sure to scrape the pan to get all that color and flavor from the bottom into your soup. Add your thyme and bay leaf. Reduce the wine until your onions begin to caramelize again. Now its time to add the stock. Here is where I add my beef base as well. Bases are sometimes looked down upon by chefs because you are basically adding flavor without creating the stock. In my opinion, bases are there to enhance the flavors you already have built, or for those who don’t want to spend several days making their own veal stock. To each their own. I like the addition. Feel free to leave it out if you wish. Heat your soup until it comes to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for about an hour to allow the flavors to fully develop. Before you serve, you need to season. Make sure you are tasting your food before you serve it. One of the biggest mistakes that cooks in a restaurant or home chefs make is that they don’t taste the food they are preparing. Tasting allows you to adjust the food you’re cooking so it goes out just how you want it to. Taste your food!
- sliced baguette bread, 1/4 inch slices, toasted
- 1 cup shredded Swiss cheese
- sliced gruyere cheese
The last step for this soup is the proper service. We need to make some croutons to put on top of the soup and melt our cheese over that. I like to use baguette. Slice your bread about 1/4 inch thick and lightly drizzle with olive oil. In a 350 F oven toast the bread until golden brown and crispy, about 10 minutes. Allow the bread a few minutes to cool. While the bread is cooling you can portion your soup into whatever bowl you would like to use. Make sure the bowls are safe to put in the oven, they won’t be in there long but we don’t want to melt a bowl while trying to make our soup. After portioning out your soup put a pile of the Swiss cheese on top of the toasted bread, I used about a tablespoon. Top the crouton with a slice of the gruyere cheese and place the crouton in the portioned soup. Put the prepared soups in the oven and set your oven to broil. Toast the cheese until it begins to brown and the cheese melted. Time will vary depending on the oven, so keep a close eye on the soup. Sprinkle with some finely chopped parsley for garnish and you are ready to serve.
The pictures above are of the finished products, I will be uploading a post for the crab cakes and lemon aioli later today or early tomorrow. Thanks for stopping by, until next time. Cheers!