Stay warm with this GREAT French onion soup! There is nothing more comforting on a chilly day than a hot bowl of French onion soup? Especially with a thick slice of toasted bread loaded with melted Gruyere cheese on Top!!!
There are 2 tricks to the perfect French Onion Soup.
The first is your stock!!! The soup will only be as good as the stock you are using. This soup traditionally is made with beef stock, though sometimes a good beef stock can be hard to come by and expensive to make.
If you use stock cubes, taste it first! If you don’t like the taste, don’t use it. (If you cook a lot of beef or beef roasts, save the juice and freeze them to make a stock with later.) This will make your Winning stock.
The second trick is to properly caramelize the onions. Caramelizing the amount of onions needed in this recipe will take at least 40 minutes. Caramelizing is a chemical process that occurs when the sugars in the onions reach a certain temperature.
This only happens after a long cooking time (the addition of a little extra sugar will help). The more caramelized, the deeper the color of the onions and the more flavor you’ll get from them.
INGREDIENTS
6 large red or yellow onions, peeled and thinly sliced.
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon of sugar
2 cloves garlic, minced
1.5ml of beef stock
120ml cup of dry white wine
2 bay leaves
1 tablespoon of fresh thyme
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper & salt
8 slices French bread
Grated Swiss Gruyere and a sprinkling of Parmesan
DIRECTIONS:
In a saucepan or casserole pot heat and melt the oil and butter together. When this is very hot, add the onions, garlic and sugar, and keep turning them from time to time until the edges of the onions have turned dark – this will take about 6 minutes. Then reduce the heat to its lowest setting and leave the onions to carry on cooking very slowly for about 30 minutes, by which time the base of the pan will be covered with a rich, nut brown, caramelised film.
After that, pour in the stock and white wine, season, then stir with a wooden spoon, scraping the base of the pan well.
Add the bay leaves, and thyme. Bring to a simmer, cover the pot and lower the heat to maintain a low simmer. Cook for about 30 minutes.
Season to taste with more salt and add freshly ground black pepper. Discard the bay leaves.
While the soup is simmering, toast your bread & Get ready to serve:
Ladle the soup into the bowls or casserole dish. Cover with the toast and sprinkle with cheese. Put under grill for 5 minutes or until the cheese bubbles and is slightly browned.
Enjoy!!! It’s Deelicious!!!
Tag me @blondeeliving and #blondeeliving if you try out this lovely recipe.
Loads more to come your way.....