French Onion Soup
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter ( extra 3 tbsp for the optional roux step )
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 4 cups sliced onion ( see below for cutting directions )
- 1 cup red wine
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 2 bay leaves
- 3 tbsp flour ( see below for the optional roux step )
- 4 cups beef broth (approximately)
- Salt & Pepper
- Toppings - see below
Instructions
- Melt the butter, olive oil on medium heat, add the sliced onions, and cook until translucent and tender. Stir constantly, this should take approx 25 minutes.
- Add the wine, thyme, bay leaves, bring to a boil, cook until the wine evaporates, approx 5 minutes.
- Roux - either dust the onions with the flour, or make a light roux with the flour and butter (medium heat, melt butter, add flour, stir constantly, cook until caramel coloured brown). If you go with the dusting method, lower the heat to med-low and cook for 10 minutes to clear the raw flour taste.
- Add the broth, bring to a simmer, and cook another 10 minutes.
- Remove the bay leaves, add salt&pepper to taste.
- Ladle into a broiler-safe bowl, top with bread&cheese (see below), and broil until the cheese bubbles and starts to brown.
Notes
Onion: cut stem, root, peel. Cut in half vertically, then slice into thin half-moons. Some people prefer smaller pieces of onion, so you can cut in half vertically, place flat side down, cut across the grain into 1/2" wide segments, hold the pieces together, rotate again and cut along the grain into 1/4" pieces.
For the topping, traditional is slices of baguette, you can use any crusty bread, croutons, toast, etc (or skip it), and then cover with cheese - typically 1 slice of provolone and 1/2 slice of swiss, then 1 tbsp of grated parmesan, but gruyere works, mozarella works, any white-ish cheese that will bring flavour, melt well, lightly brown is fine.