French cuisine

French onion soup

Name: French onion soup
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 60 min
Total time: 75 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: French cuisine
Ingredients: 1 kg Onions; 50 g Butter; 1 tbsp Flour; 150 ml Dry white wine; 1.2 l Beef stock; 8 slice Baguette; 150 g Gruyère; 2 sprig Thyme; to taste Salt and pepper

Soupe à l'oignon gratinée

Soup from onions, stock and cheese-topped bread. All of the flavour comes from caramelisation, which takes forty minutes rather than twenty.

Prep: 15 min
Cook: 60 min
Total: 75 min
Difficulty: Easy

Servings

Units

Ingredients

Onions — thinly sliced1 kg
Butter50 g
Flour1 tbsp
Dry white wine150 ml
Beef stock1.2 l
Baguette — toasted8 slice
Gruyère — grated150 g
Thyme2 sprig
Salt and pepperto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1
Melt the butter in a heavy pot, add the onions and a pinch of salt, and keep them over medium heat, stirring every few minutes. For the first twenty minutes the onions give up water.
20 min
2
Then the caramelisation proper begins: another twenty-five minutes to take the onions to the colour of strong tea. If they catch, lower the heat and add a spoonful of water.
25 min
3
Stir in the flour and cook it out for a couple of minutes so it loses its raw taste.
2 min
4
Pour in the wine and scrape everything stuck to the bottom back into the pot. Let it reduce by half.
4 min
5
Add the stock and thyme, bring to the boil and simmer for twenty minutes. Season at the end, since the stock may already be salty.
20 min
6
Ladle into ovenproof bowls, top each with a slice of baguette, cover with cheese and put them under the grill until bubbling and browned, about three minutes.
3 min

About the dish

Recipes promising caramelised onions in fifteen minutes are describing something else. Real caramelisation takes at least forty minutes over medium heat: the sugars break down slowly, and the only way to hurry it is to burn them.

The second thing that matters is deglazing. The brown film on the bottom of the pot is the flavour; wine or stock lifts it and returns it to the soup.

Worth knowing

— Onions caramelise faster in a wide pot: more surface means the water leaves sooner.
— If you have no Gruyère, Emmental or any semi-hard cheese that stretches without pooling will do.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories: 430 kcal
Protein: 17 g
Fat: 21 g
Carbs: 40 g