French onion soup
For when you want delicious soup, but you also want to cry while preparing it.
French Onion Soup
Time: 2ish hrs | Difficulty: 1/5 | Recommendation: Slow weeknight meal
What French guy years and years ago said, I want a delicious, perfect soup, but I want to be in searing pain as I prepare it? You have to suffer for this soup, but that makes it even better in the end. This recipe is not mine, it’s adapted from Mary Berry, which is a pretty perfect recipe (it’s just too big, so I’ve pared it down to be for one person plus leftovers). Make sure you give the onions a really long time to caramelize, because that’s where all the flavor comes from. You can also use either chicken broth or beef broth, whichever you can find that’s better! And if you don’t have an oven-proof bowl, you can toast the gruyère-bread separately and just put it on top at the end.
Ingredients/Tools:
3 white onions
Butter
1 tbsp sugar
100ml white wine
4 cups/32 oz of chicken or beef stock (an entire box)
Herbes de Provence or thyme
Bread
Gruyère
Dijon mustard
A big pot
Method:
Slice the onions.
Melt about 2 tbsp of butter and a touch of olive oil in a big pot (the olive oil helps the butter not to burn).
Add the onions and coat them in the butter. Let them soften for about ten minutes over low to medium heat, lid on. Then add the sugar and stir well.
On low-medium heat, cover and let them caramelize the onions for a looong time. Check every so often and stir them around a bit, checking so they don’t burn. Overall this will take about a half an hour.
When the onions are a deep brown and smell all sweet and sugary, add in the wine and heat everything together, lid off, to reduce the mixture. Let this heat for about 5-10 minutes.
Once the wine has reduced—you’ll see it mostly having absorbed into the onions, creating a deep colored base—add the stock, cover the pot, and simmer for about 20 minutes to meld all the flavors together.
Add in the herbs, salt, and pepper to taste. The soup is done when you think it tastes delicious!
To prepare, spread butter and dijon mustard on a slice of bread. Then grate on some gruyère. Toast the bread in the oven at 375 until the cheese is bubbly and melty, then place the toast on top of the bowl of soup.
