Week #5 - French Onion Soup

I love French onion soup! This seemed like a fairly easy soup to make and I always get it at restaurants, so I tried it. Most recipes I saw seemed to be pretty similar, so I went with this one from the Food Network.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 4 onions, sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 fresh thyme sprigs
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 cup red wine, about 1/2 bottle
• 3 heaping tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 quarts beef broth
• 1 baguette, sliced
• 1/2 pound grated Gruyere

The only thing I already had at home was the wine, flower, and dried herbs (instead of fresh ones). I used half a bottle of Gnarley Head red zin that I had in the fridge, and got swiss and mozzarella cheese instead of Gruyere.

Directions

Melt the stick of butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onions, garlic, bay leaves, thyme, and salt and pepper and cook until the onions are very soft and caramelized, about 25 minutes. 

Add the wine, bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer until the wine has evaporated and the onions are dry, about 5 minutes. Discard the bay leaves and thyme sprigs (I used dried herbs and just left them in). 

Dust the onions with the flour and give them a stir. Turn the heat down to medium low so the flour doesn't burn, and cook for 10 minutes to cook out the raw flour taste. Now add the beef broth, bring the soup back to a simmer, and cook for 10 minutes. Season, to taste, with salt and pepper.

When you're ready to eat, preheat the broiler. Arrange the baguette slices on a baking sheet in a single layer. Sprinkle the slices with the Gruyere (I used swiss and mozarella) and broil until bubbly and golden brown, 3 to 5 minutes. Ladle the soup in bowls and float several of the Gruyere croutons on top.
Alternative method: Ladle the soup into bowls, top each with 2 slices of bread and top with cheese. Put the bowls into the oven to toast the bread and melt the cheese.

I did the method where you put the bread and the cheese in the soup and then put it in the oven (400 degrees for 10 minutes), but it did not toast the bread. Next time I will toast the bread in the oven on a cookie sheet, and then put them in the soup with the cheese and put it back in the oven to melt the cheese.

This soup tasted great. I think I should have cooked the onions longer, I only cooked them about 15 or 20 minutes. I was very pleased with this soup.

Rating 4.5/5